Welcome and Workshop Introduction

Part 1 of 4 · Ep. 182

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hi, this is John Dehlin. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. What you are about to hear is part of an all day workshop recorded at the Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium on August 4, 2010. The first half of the day was dedicated to navigating an LDS faith crisis in or out of the LDS Church and the second half of the day was dedicated to navigating an LDS marriage when one of you loses their faith. Since I'm in graduate school, I put this workshop on in part to help raise money for my family's health insurance. So my initial intent was to only share this workshop with those of you who contributed financially to the podcast.

John Dehlin [00:00:37] However, many of you, my financial supporters, have encouraged me to go ahead and release the full workshop anyway so that all can benefit. So that's what I've decided to do. But I'm doing it with a plea. If you have not contributed to Mormon Stories and you find value in this workshop, please take a moment to contribute to Mormon stories today@mormonstories.org either with a one time donation or signing up for a monthly subscription. Without this support, I cannot continue to create this content for others and for you.

John Dehlin [00:01:08] So thanks so much to all of you who are monthly subscribers and please keep in touch through email@mormonstoriesmail.com and now on to the workshop.

John Dehlin [00:01:16] I hope you enjoy hello, my name is John Dehlin. I'm very happy to have you here today and I'm honored and privileged and humbled to be able to talk to you a little bit and to be able to talk with you with some very special guests that I've actually brought to help in this dialogue.

John Dehlin [00:01:40] Natasha Parker was kind enough to come all the way from Wichita, Kansas. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist and she was featured on a recent Mormon Stories episode that I've gotten some really good feedback about. She has a blog called mormontherapist.blogspot.com and I'm working on getting, you know, working with her on having her own domain name. She ends up providing therapy to a lot of LDS people. Probably what you said, 80% of your clients.

John Dehlin [00:02:14] 90%. Yeah. So she's got a fantastic blog and has great insight. So I invited her to come help with this presentation and she said she would and I'm just thrilled. So I want to introduce Natasha. I've also invited two very dear friends of mine to be a part of this discussion, Laurie and Dan Gallagher.

Introducing the Panelists and Their Stories

John Dehlin [00:02:40] They live in the Bay Area. South Bay, what is it? East Bay, what do you call it? East Bay They've also been featured on a podcast on Mormon Stories where they talked about navigating a mixed faith marriage where one believes and one doesn't. And I think that they have a lot of insight to provide as well. I think they're both very wise and thoughtful and good people. So thank you so much, Dan and Laurie, for coming as well. And

Guest [00:03:12] so

John Dehlin [00:03:15] we just got done with a three hour marathon of talking about navigating a crisis of faith within Mormonism. My voice is already starting to go and I'm tired and I can't imagine. I don't want to hear myself talk. So I can't imagine any of you wanting to hear me talk anymore.

John Dehlin [00:03:33] But maybe I'll give a little bit of an introduction, some ground rules, and then we'll kind of try and keep this as collaborative as possible. But thank you again for coming. A few ground rules. I want everybody to feel very safe here, that there won't be any judgments on any opinion or feeling you want to express or talk about. There's no dumb question.

John Dehlin [00:03:59] There's no biases about are you liberal enough or are you conservative enough or are you a believer enough or are you not believing enough? We don't want to have any of that kind of judgment here. This is just attempting to be a very practical workshop for people who are in need of learning or maybe discussing or brainstorming or getting a few tools to help them navigate a marriage when there's a crisis of faith. So I hope we'll all help together to nurture that safe environment. I want this to be very participatory. As I mentioned earlier.

John Dehlin [00:04:35] I don't want to just stand here and talk like I really know anything or make you guys feel like I've got all the answers. The longer I live, the less I feel like I know. But since I've had the benefit of speaking with hundreds of couples who are struggling in a mixed faith kind of marriage, I do feel like I've got some experience on their behalf that I can share and that we can at least discuss. So I hope this will be very participatory. If all we did was have you guys ask questions and then we facilitate a discussion between us and you, I'd be delighted.

John Dehlin [00:05:14] I do have a few things just to kind of set up a few thoughts, but other than that, I'm pretty happy with just freeform. Actually, if you are, I want to make sure you understand that we're taking a destination agnostic approach. And what I mean by that is I'm not here to tell you to stay in the church. I'm not here to tell you to leave the church. I'm not here to tell you to stand your marriage. I'm not here to tell you to leave your marriage.

John Dehlin [00:05:43] That's above my pay grade. And so with that, those of you who consider yourself true believers may be uncomfortable when we're talking about the prospects of not staying in the church. And those of you who are committed to your marriage may not like talks about how to constructively end a marriage and vice versa. Those of you who hate the church might feel frustrated when we're talking about constructive ways to make it work. Or those who can't stand their spouse and want to get divorced may not like talking about how to make it, make it maybe work. But we're not, you know, we just want to make sure you understand that and that we're also not going to be dealing with truth claims here.

John Dehlin [00:06:27] The purpose of this is not to convince you the church is false and not to convince you the church is true. We're not even going to touch any of that. So don't feel like we're swing in any way or want this to be very supportive and practical.

John Dehlin [00:06:45] And I would like to just get a quick sense. Let me see. Okay, brief, brief intro. For those of you who was not here in the morning, raise your hand.

Guest 2 [00:06:56] Wow.

John Dehlin [00:06:57] Okay, so I'll just give you a brief intro. My name is John Delinquent. I had a big, big crisis of faith about 10 or so years ago where I was called as a seminary teacher in Seattle when I worked for Microsoft to teach students. I was born in the church, pioneer ancestry, served a mission, seminary president.

John Dehlin [00:07:25] Just the church was everything to me. Loved my mission, had a hard mission, but loved it and got married in the temple and you know, was committed to Mormonism in every way. And as through studying church history for my seminary calling and through just some relationships with some good friends, I stumbled upon sort of the real story in terms of what our history is really about. And I wasn't prepared for it.

John Dehlin [00:07:55] I was shocked and sickened by a lot of the stuff that I read, all coming from church materials, none of it coming from anti Mormon sources, but just books published by the church. Journals and diaries and church publications were my pretty much only sources. And it just happened somehow that kind of the more factual history had never really been taught to me by the time I was 30 or 35. So I felt lied to and deceived and frustrated and sad and scared because my wife and I were active in the church. And my wife enjoyed her membership. She was active in young women's at the time.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] You know, we had three children. All my immediate family is active and committed to the church. And it's a really terrifying place to be where you start not being able to believe things like you did and trying to figure out what to do with that. And so I struggled for a long time. Kind of. I got to this really dark and bitter place where I would always try and find people at church or colleagues that I could talk to and maybe argue with to try and get some answers or at least find other people who understood or could relate to the things that I was thinking and feeling.

John Dehlin [00:09:18] Found very few people who I could talk to. Slowly, I started trying to figure out if I could talk to my wife. But, you know, I was in such an angry place that I'm sure that often she didn't want to talk or she just didn't feel like that was something she really was interested in pursuing. She's always been very happy with her membership. It was good for her family. It was good for our family.

John Dehlin [00:09:49] And so she saw me reading more and more books and getting darker and darker and darker. And one day I just pulled her aside and turned to her and said, honey, I'm not sure that the church is what it claims to be, and I'm not sure the church is what I thought it was.

John Dehlin [00:10:11] And immediately, just the tears just welled up in her eyes and came right down her face. And, you know, that was a really hard moment for our family. And 10 years later, we've been trying to find our way ever since. We've remained married, and we've come to a really comfortable place, my wife and I. Very comfortable. I have no problems at all with the church as it relates to my wife, and we are right now active in the church.

John Dehlin [00:10:41] But we're very unorthodox in belief and somewhat unorthodox in some of our behaviors, though none of the ones you'd think it's not. I've never been interested in word of wisdom stuff or law of chastity stuff or any of the stuff that some people become interested in. My unorthodoxy is just around other types of things. We can talk about that if you want, but that's a brief intro. I guess the only other thing I'll say is I started this podcast called Mormon Stories.

How These Mixed-Faith Marriages Are Common

John Dehlin [00:11:10] It's had several thousand listeners to date. And I guess because of that podcast, I get calls and emails every week. Two to three couples showing up on my doorstep or asking me to go to lunch. And the story is pretty much always identical.

John Dehlin [00:11:31] It's usually the husband that stumbles upon the history, starts to question, decides that the church isn't true, but the wife loves the church and is still a believer. And Dan and Laurie are somewhat of an inverse of that.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] But that's the typical story. One believes, one doesn't. And they're trying to decide, do we dissolve the marriage? Does the believer just take the kids and divorce the disbeliever? How do we navigate this? And even if we're committed to our marriage, how do we make it work? When one thinks the church might be damaging to the children, but the other feels like the church is going to be wonderful for the children? How do we navigate a marriage when the fundamentals of what brought us together are now no longer a sound foundation that we mutually share?

John Dehlin [00:12:18] And I've, you know, so I've counseled over a thousand people in this type of situation, and that's kind of where I am. So for those who are comfortable sharing, how many couples are here together, raise your hand if you're here with your partner. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:12:36] And how many of your situations mirror. How many of your situations have. Where one of you is sort of a traditional believer and one of you is not. Okay. All right. Okay. So this is really tricky because. Because, like, the stuff you would have maybe heard in the first three hours might be really disturbing because, like, when you're really, as I was just sort of living the normal orthodox LDS life, there's just a lot of stuff you don't hear. There's a lot of stuff you don't know about. There's a lot of stuff you don't think about.

John Dehlin [00:13:14] You pretty much are with the program, and it works, and why mess with it? And the problem with getting people across the faith spectrum together is that some people are going to say things that are disturbing to a believer. They're going to mention historical things that are disturbing. Sometimes they'll even speak of the church in an unflattering way because they're feeling things and having a bad experience.

John Dehlin [00:13:39] And that's just always going to be disturbing to someone who still considers themself a believer. So I want you to know that I'm sensitive to that. I'm not insensitive to that at all. And I want to do my best to encourage everyone to talk about religion as if you would talk to a colleague at work about their religion with respect and humility instead of in a way that's disparaging. Or demeaning or critical in a way that's not constructive. So I hope, I hope you guys will work with me to create as much of a safe environment as we can.

John Dehlin [00:14:20] And I hope that what we offer is helpful to both parties. So with that, I guess I wanted to just set the tone for what I think are a few of the most important themes. And hopefully most of this will be discussion.

Understanding Different Perspectives in Faith Transitions

John Dehlin [00:14:39] But the way that I wanted to set up was just to talk about perspectives. And this, I think is one of the most important issues that we'll probably discuss today. Imagine a young man from Boston who's a police officer and it turns out that his dad was a police officer.

John Dehlin [00:15:02] His dad always taught him to be honest, to be law abiding, that there's an important role for the policeman in society, to maintain order, to keep the peace, to help arbitrate disputes and to keep people safe. And let's say that that father was killed in the line of duty. The son was a young boy. When he saw his father give his life for this profession, he decided to become a policeman too. And he is just a proud member of the Boston police force. Can you guys kind of get into that perspective and see how someone could, could love the career and the profession of being a policeman?

John Dehlin [00:15:43] Think about 9, 11 and what, what the firefighters and the policemen did to help those who were, were dying or suffering, to help alleviate their pain and to save them from pain or injury. You can see how someone could get the perspective that police work is a fantastic and a beautiful and a wonderful thing.

John Dehlin [00:16:01] And maybe we could all get in that mindset of feeling okay about that perspective. Are we all there? All right. Well, imagine someone like Rodney King who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there were some riots going on, and there were some policemen who were very scared and trying to make good on a really hard situation and by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, was on the receiving end of some serious brutality by a policeman. And maybe his father, you know, and let's say that his father had experienced abuse, maybe being racially profiled or in some other way treated unfairly by the police force.

John Dehlin [00:16:44] And you could see how he's going to have a very different perspective on what it's like to be a policeman and how he feels about a policeman. Does that make sense? And you can kind of go between these two perspectives and kind of see that both are totally legitimate, that neither are wrong, and in some ways both are right. And in maybe some cases, both Might be wrong in some ways, but I guess through experience, you can sort of get to a place where you can see that two people can have very opposing perspectives, but at the same time, both come at that from an honest and a place of integrity and good reason.

John Dehlin [00:17:29] And, you know, another person that, you know, I can think of, or another contrast, is my stepfather. He's a beautiful, wonderful man who grew up in a rural town in Idaho. His parents were, let's just say, not very nurturing or supportive. He was raised mostly by extended family. He was gored by a bull at a young age. He lived in circumstances that most of us would consider to be worse than Third World circumstances.

John Dehlin [00:18:04] And just by some stroke of luck, he was fortunate enough to join in the military. Right around the time of World War II, he was trained as a pilot. He helped defeat Nazi Germany in World War II. He was able to help defeat the oppressors of the French and others and see how, through the proper use of military force, people could be freed and oppressors could be beat back. And he went on to serve in Vietnam and trained other pilots. And this is one of the most beautiful, wonderful, spiritual, righteous, humble, gentle, good man who's committed and loyal and faithful to his family that I've ever met.

John Dehlin [00:18:47] And he loves the military. He is true blue, red, white and blue, loves this country, loves our military, and pretty much feels like they can do no wrong. And I can understand that perspective. And here's a young mother from Afghanistan who was herself the victim of rape and whose children were in an unfortunate place at the wrong time and were blown apart by a bomb as collateral damage. And you can understand that he's going to have a perspective where he thinks the US Military is wonderful and fantastic, and she's going to see it as the most horrible thing on the planet because it took her children away from her, and it's led her to all sorts of grief and trauma.

John Dehlin [00:19:34] And it's hard to say whether one's right or one's wrong, you could probably try and tease that apart. But if I had to get to one central theme that I think is going to give all of us the best chance of navigating a marriage when one has a crisis of faith is to remember this notion of perspective. For those of you who are disbelievers, chances are you were once a believer just like your spouse, and you felt a lot of the same things that your spouse feels now. And maybe other people who were disbelievers earlier would come to you and you would have all sorts of good reasons why they were silly and you didn't want to listen to them and you were uncomfortable for the things that they were saying, but because you had that believing perspective at the time, and now those tables have been turned and maybe you're the disbeliever and your spouse remains a believer and you're trying to figure out how to navigate that.

John Dehlin [00:20:26] And maybe you're tempted to be a little bit insensitive or critical or judgmental of the believer because you now see belief as foolish or naive or something of that nature. And your spouse may very well be very happy and content and maybe even very well informed in their belief.

John Dehlin [00:20:47] And doing the flip side, maybe you're the believer and you're struggling to understand why your spouse is in this dark place. That doesn't seem constructive, doesn't seem helpful, that seems damaging, that seems like it's going to derail your family, that maybe the agreements and the contract upon which your marriage was founded now has been violated. And you're trying to understand whether a bait and switch occurred, whether this person was honest with you or whether they've committed some egregious sin or some type of other violation that would cause them to be walking down the path that they're walking. And it's easy to judge them as well.

John Dehlin [00:21:27] And I would just say that that's sort of something that I would love to try and help build that muscle, the muscle for empathy for varying perspectives. Because as we're going to get into this today, I think that the believing perspective is legitimate, and I think the disbelieving perspective is legitimate. I think both are very legitimate. And I know smart, intelligent, informed, sensitive people who are on both sides of that equation. And I know many people who are disbelievers who have done everything they could possibly do to be believers, and they just have not been able to do it.

John Dehlin [00:22:04] And so I think that. I hope that we can talk about that today. And if we can build up anything, it's a sense of a place, a space within you of empathy and tolerance and support for that alternate perspective that isn't yours.

How a Mixed-Faith Marriage Unfolds

John Dehlin [00:22:21] And so, as you think about the traditional Mormon marriage and how it usually works, you know, you get in the marriage with this sort of ideal of what's going to happen. Maybe you're both returned missionaries, you get married in the temple, you're going to have four kids or maybe six, you're going to raise them righteously in the church, you're both going to stay active, you're going to have lots of grandkids and celebrate this wonderful life of commitment to the church. Maybe you'll serve a mission when you're in old age. You know, that's sort of how many marriages within the church start.

John Dehlin [00:22:58] And you know, we really think we know and we understand each other and you kind of have a contract of what your marriage is going to be like, and you have an understanding. But it turns out that that contract isn't just between two people. Oftentimes that contract is, is between you, your spouse, and the church. And this is something that's really hard to tease apart because sometimes it's hard to know whether someone's married their spouse or they've married the church, and the spouse was just sort of part of that contractual agreement. They're the ones that fill that slot for the ideal life that you planned on having someday, and they become more of a functional utility player in this grand scheme of Mormon life that you had envisioned for yourself.

John Dehlin [00:23:40] And sometimes it's really hard to tease apart the church from how much of your marriage really was just you two sincerely knowing each other and loving each other versus you being in the plan and this person dropping in the right slot for you to continue with the plan that was designed for you and that you chose to follow yourself.

John Dehlin [00:24:00] And then something terrible and unexpected happens and one of you has a crisis of faith, something that is rarely planned and can cause all sorts of disruption. And then that person changes and they're all of a sudden questioning all sorts of things. Maybe they want to start drinking alcohol. Maybe they want to stop going to church. Maybe they want to teach the kids things that are not things that the church has taught.

John Dehlin [00:24:26] Maybe they want to experiment with other types of options. You know, there are all sorts of ways that people end up wanting to break the agreement or to change the terms of that relationship. And I guess as we try and understand the perspectives of both parties, I'll just reiterate what I've already said. I've never met a disbeliever who, like, would have chosen that when they were in their best moments as a Happy believing Mormon. These people.

John Dehlin [00:24:59] The cost of expressing disbelief within the LDS Church is extremely high. The potential painful and damaging consequences of expressing disbelief within the church are real and they're dramatic. I can't tell you how many people email me and say, my wife has taken the kids and left me because I've read the wrong book and now I'm questioning things and now I've lost my children.

John Dehlin [00:25:29] So no one. It's almost to Me, I think of a lot. I think, as we talked earlier today, I think of the situation of someone being gay or homosexual is very much similar to what it's like to become a disbeliever in the church.

John Dehlin [00:25:45] I've interviewed dozens of gay people, had several close friends, and pretty much all of them say that for many, many years they would have given anything to change this about themselves. They did do everything. They prayed, they fasted, they went on missions.

John Dehlin [00:26:06] They lived every single commandment that the church gave them with exact obedience. And some of them have gone 10, 20 years still waiting for that day when the Lord would take this feeling that they had away from them. Having never experimented with sexuality oftentimes at all, ever in their lives, doing everything they can to make it go away, and they couldn't. And I think that there's a lot of similarities there. Once someone's crossed that threshold of disbelief, it's often with having made many efforts to try and fix it.

John Dehlin [00:26:45] The other thing I want to say is that disbelief within the LDS Church is happening at a very significant rate and at an increasingly significant rate. I would say thousands to tens of thousands, if not more of people are leaving the church every year. And if you actually look at activity rates that are sort of pieced together through statistical analysis, you'll find that about two thirds of the members of the church are inactive from the church. In many of the countries, like in South America, the disparity between what the church claims, the number of members are and what the actual censuses show, there's a dramatic disparity between people who call themselves Mormon and people who the church keeps on the rolls.

John Dehlin [00:27:28] And I can tell you that on average, two thirds of the member of any ward are inactive from the church, and one third are active now in. In Utah. Because of some of the social dynamics. It's going to be a little bit less than if you go to Latin America and the third world. You're going to find 10 to 20% activity rates in many of those countries. But I guess the thing I want to say is disbelief is the norm within the church, not the exception.

John Dehlin [00:27:56] I hate to say this, but rarely have I found someone who crossed that threshold of disbelief who is able to put themselves back in the box of literalistic, orthodox belief. It has happened, but it's extremely rare. But the most common situation is once they no longer believe the church is literally the one and only true church with exclusive authority, and they find out all the historical stuff and they find out all the cultural stuff, they'll Never have that orthodox traditional testimony again. More often than not now, there are ways to reconstitute your testimony into something that's more symbolic and metaphoric and nuanced. And there are people who are willing to maintain activity in spite of disbelief just as a service to their spouse.

John Dehlin [00:28:48] But that's been my experience. And if you guys have had other experiences, I'm very interested in hearing about that too. These people, by and large, that I've communicated with, who have lost their faith in the church, did not leave the church because they're offended.

John Dehlin [00:29:05] They did not leave the church because they wanted to sin. They did not leave the church because there was some commandment they couldn't keep or they were weak. These are usually the people who are zone leaders and assistants to the president on their missions. These are usually the people who are multi generational pioneer stock.

John Dehlin [00:29:25] And if you think about what would lead someone to be willing to even consider that the church isn't what it claims to be, you have to realize that in many cases this requires a high degree of caring. Because why would you study to the depths that you need to study if you didn't care? So these people, by and large, care more than the average, Love the church more than average. I was the seminary teacher loving my experience with my students when I was thrust into this sort of situation. So they care and they are honest. These are people who are willing to say that do what is right, let the consequences follow.

John Dehlin [00:30:08] And I may lose my spouse, I may lose my children, I may lose my job, I may lose the respect and admiration of my parents and siblings and extended family. But I have to be true to what I feel.

John Dehlin [00:30:23] And so I'm going to share my true feelings, even if it's going to cost me everything. And so it's easy to demonize these people as having committed some sin or being weak. That's just not been my experience. I'd say 90 plus percent of the people that I've spoken to are of the highest integrity, highest degree of morality and authenticity.

John Dehlin [00:30:50] Yeah. And we'll talk about some of these other things later. I'm going to jump through this and come back to it. About the believer. For those of you who are disbelievers, it's understand that you remember that you were once in their shoes and there was a time when someone probably could never have shaken you from your belief.

John Dehlin [00:31:15] And so there are all sorts of things you need to try your best to remember as you're working through your own pain and anger and frustration. One is that you're the one who switched the deal, not them. You were married under a certain set of circumstances and rules and now you've changed the game. Now in marriages you're allowed to change, you're allowed to grow. That's a good thing. But at the same time, when you decide to reorient yourself so fundamentally away from the terms upon which your marriage was based, I think that warrants a certain sense of, maybe a very high sense of sensitivity and compassion and empathy for the person who remains a believer.

John Dehlin [00:31:57] It certainly doesn't warrant your mocking or your ridicule or your scorn for their disbelief, the belittlement of saying, well, well, you're just weak minded. You just don't have the courage to find out the truth. You're just sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich. That's not a very affirming, compassionate way to deal with someone who's in the same shoes you were just up until recently. You have to realize that these people are terrified of change.

John Dehlin [00:32:25] So often it's the woman who remains the believer and more often than not, the woman doesn't care about church history. In my experience, that's a generalization, but it's my anecdotal experience. My wife was very similar. She was willing to read a couple books, but from her perspective, it was as simple as this. Church works for me. I don't care what happened 150 years ago. This is a great place to raise my children. I'm happy here. I've got a lot of friends. And that's the level upon which they're engaging. They don't oftentimes care about, you know, faint Algeria or any of that stuff. And so for them to just sort of consider changing fundamentally their worldview is very disturbing.

John Dehlin [00:33:06] It's very terrifying. It requires a complete reassembly of your entire worldview. How you view the afterlife, how you view death, how you deal with the deaths of close beloved family members, how you might be coping with some type of mental illness or something you're struggling with. It's terrifying. And it's something to be dealt with with compassion, not with scorn and mocking and ridicule.

John Dehlin [00:33:29] It's very common for the believer to say, once we start throwing things out, once we start changing, where does it end? Are we going to throw everything out? Am I going to have anything left for my children, for our family, for us? Are you going to want an open marriage? Are you going to tell me that you want to mess around? Are you going to tell me that we're going to just give our kids nothing to believe in and, and nothing to hold to.

John Dehlin [00:33:54] And so it's very unsettling and destabilizing. And most importantly, I often fall victim of this, of just assuming that the disbeliever is more informed and the believer is uninformed. And that's not always true. There are lots of believers who are much more informed than any disbelievers out there. And so belief is not stupid thing, and it's just unkind and inaccurate to equate belief with ignorance or stupidity or anything negative.

John Dehlin [00:34:30] But I will stick to the belief that no church or no religion is important enough or powerful enough or should be powerful enough to break up a healthy marriage and to break up a healthy family. And that's exactly why I'm doing this workshop and why I'm here.

John Dehlin [00:34:46] Sometimes divorce is a great thing, sometimes it's a horrible thing. Sometimes it's what you need to heal and to become healthy. Sometimes it'll destroy everyone's life for a generation. But regardless of all that, I don't believe that churches or religions should be put in front of close, intimate family relationships. There has to be a way for family relationships to transcend the church and orthodoxy and literalistic, dogmatic or non dogmatic beliefs. And so I guess I have a bunch of recommendations and suggestions that I think might be helpful as sort of tools in your toolbox for coming to grips and dealing with this perspective. But before we jump into that, I would like to just throw the floor up for questions and just see, I'd like to hear like if you had on top of your mind some of the things you most want to get to, we can just deal with them up front and there may be some slides I can jump to to deal with them.

Audience Questions Begin: Raising Kids in a Divided Home

John Dehlin [00:35:59] Or it may be that just between the panel and our own communication, we're able to really help each other come up with some tools to support. I'm going to give a couple ground rules. Okay? I said this in the past session.

John Dehlin [00:36:15] Everyone needs to talk into the microphone. This mic will not broadcast anything you say. There are no speakers in this room. Since we're recording this for the benefit of other people, it's important that not my voice only be on the recording, that everyone else talking and their questions are kind of like that. So I'm going to ask everyone who ever makes a comment for the rest of these three hours or whatever it is to speak into the microphone and wait until the microphone is handed to you. If that's okay.

John Dehlin [00:36:42] Secondly, I'm going to ask you to really try and be sensitive to the fact that we have a lot of people here. Lots of people are going to want to ask questions and share their perspective, and people have come with all sorts of needs. And so for those of you who decide to contribute, and I hope all of you will contribute, please keep your comments brief and on target.

John Dehlin [00:37:04] Please be aware of how much you've been talking and if you find that it's been a minute or two and you're still going, try and just kind of realize that you need to cut it short and be sensitive to the fact that people have come to hear a broad set of perspectives. And if you found that you've already asked a question or two or made a comment or two, please just sort of then kind of fade back a bit and let others step up so that we can have a nice collaborative experience that no one person sort of dominated. I apologize that I have to say that.

John Dehlin [00:37:37] But other than that, I'm going to be shuttling this microphone between our panelists. I'm going to just say that for those of you who consider yourself well, for those of you who would like to speak to someone who sort of is in the believer camp and considers himself in the believer camp, that's sort of the camp that Dan's representing. Although it's never fair to sum anybody up with that type of stereotype. Dan has his own set of sophisticated and nuanced beliefs. He's in no way a dogmatic, orthodox, you know, traditional type Mormon, but at the same time, he represents the believer half in his family.

John Dehlin [00:38:17] And more importantly, when he and Laurie went through their crisis, he definitely represented that believer side. And that may be a value to direct your questions either as the disbeliever or the believer or somewhere in the middle. Laurie represents sort of the out of her closet open disbeliever. Is that okay? She's going to have a better way to describe it, but that's how I'm going to introduce Laurie.

John Dehlin [00:38:41] And then Natasha kind of balances that middle as someone who is counseled people in this situation and has a lot of experience there. So with that, I'm going to start by just saying who's got topics they want to talk about? And we'll go from there.

Guest 3 [00:38:59] I just would like to see a show of hands in here because I know right now, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4. Where the women were the ones that were disbelievers first. And so I'm wondering if this crowd actually matches what your Experience has been where it's the man first.

Guest 4 [00:39:14] That's all.

Guest 3 [00:39:15] I was just curious if we're willing to do that.

John Dehlin [00:39:16] Okay, so for the coup where it's the male who was first a disbeliever, raise your hand. And for the couples where it was the female who was first a disbeliever, raise your hand. Okay, that's actually. Yeah. So my anecdotal experience isn't always accurate. I'm fine with that. I have no problem with that. Okay, good. That was great. Okay, we have a question here.

Guest [00:39:43] So when you described your typical situation, you pretty much nailed mine. And so I'd like to see discussed, particularly what to do about the kids. So I've got six kids. The oldest is 10. And we talked a little bit last session about, you know, when to introduce some of these concepts that, you know, daddy may think one thing and Mommy may think another and how to go about that. And then what do you do about, you know, your boys when they are approaching mission age and the cultural and familial pressures, how to inoculate children when they begin the Young Men and Young Women program and seminary.

Guest [00:40:27] And I'm using that term not as an offensive sort of way, but from maybe my perspective. And just basically, what do you do with the kids when we both have, you know, I changed the game and, you know, she's great, and our marriage relationship is actually fantastic. But, you know, where does this. Where does this lead us, particularly with the children?

John Dehlin [00:40:51] That's great. I have a lot of experience in inoculating children, to use the term, in helping to, as an unorthodox believer, raise my kids in a way to where I could feel comfortable with them being in the church, but still having some of the values that I cherish. What I don't have experience with is navigating the conflict of deciding how to approach that, because my wife and I were always in unison on that point. So let's start with that first question that I don't have experience with. Do either of you want to try and talk about how you do? You guys mind if Dan and Laurie talk a little bit about this? Okay.

Natasha Helfer [00:41:43] I mean, for your question, I think there doesn't have to be as much disagreement there as it might seem, because what we found with us is that we don't really disagree on values. And I think what happens is that the people that are kind of in disagreement about the church think they're in disagreement about values. And it doesn't have to be that way, because so many of the Mormon customs and lifestyle things.

Natasha Helfer [00:42:11] This is my own view, maybe this is my heretical view, but I don't see them as values. They're kind of means to an end. They're expression of values. You know, if you're talking about something like the word of wisdom, you know, Laurie values physical health probably more than I do. She teaches yoga for a living. So it'd be laughable for me to say, well, you know, you know, if I. If I had a different view on the word of wisdom and she didn't, that we disagree on that value. We don't.

Natasha Helfer [00:42:39] So I think. I think you need to put it in the understanding that you probably agree on more values than you think. So it's more a matter of navigating maybe some of the. Maybe some of the social issues to your point, on missions. And I'll hand it to Laurie, my particular view. I have two sons, and the oldest is 15, so we're a few years from this.

Natasha Helfer [00:43:01] But my own mission experience, I spent most of my mission actually undoing the damage done by guys who didn't want to be there. So even at our most believing time in our marriage, when Laurie was actually a stronger believer than I was, it was never going to be the case that my kids go, because that's what you do.

Natasha Helfer [00:43:22] My view's always been, if they want to go, they're going to go, but they're not going to be raised with the thought that you have to do this, because this is what everybody does. So that's pretty much the similar approach. If they get to that age and they feel that pull, that drive, I think we're together in saying, that's fine, that's up to them. But they're not. They're not. They're not getting a different message from us. Like for me saying, okay, you have to go from her saying, please don't, or we're more in agreement on that than maybe some are.

John Dehlin [00:43:55] But do you want to add.

Guest 3 [00:43:56] I guess the question is, is your wife nervous about you, about them learning other ways than Mormonism? She really wants them in.

Guest [00:44:05] I mean, you're right. We agree on the values approach. And right now I'm as active as I've ever been, and I was very active and very committed. But, you know, I don't know how to introduce this concept to the kids. And I think my wife is afraid that it'll, you know, basically destroy their faith before they ever have a chance to develop faith.

Guest 3 [00:44:30] We've had interesting experiences with that because. And I think it's really hard when it comes to the point of they don't want, if the believer doesn't want their child introduced and I want to make a point about that. If the believer doesn't want their child introduced to any other thought process, I have an interesting perspective because I'm the mother, I spend more time teaching the kids. I'm just with them more.

Guest 3 [00:44:53] And I'm, you know, there comes my mama bear instinct, like how dare anybody tell me I can't teach my children what I believe. But I stand up firmly for the fathers. If there are a lot more fathers that have that, that each parent needs to have that space and freedom to teach their kids, it's really important to your relationship with your child. And I believe that when you start tiptoeing around and kind of talking and not knowing how to navigate, they know you're holding back, they know you're not telling the truth. So at every age stage of development I found the 5 year old, the 10 year old, the 15 year old. I talk differently to each one, but truthfully.

Guest 2 [00:45:32] So

Guest 3 [00:45:35] the 10 year old is in that black and white phase of thinking. So it's really funny talking to him and kind of shattering his black and white thinking as he's ready as we go along. 15 year old and I can talk about everything. The 10 year old the other day said something I'm trying to remember, he said, ask me some question about Joseph Smith. So we're talking about Joseph Smith, we're talking about pioneers. I think it was Pioneer day or something. And I said, yeah, and you know, Joseph had lots of wives. And he went, what? You're only supposed to have one wife. And instead of going yeah, isn't that crazy and weird?

Guest 3 [00:46:09] I said, yeah, we think you should have one wife and other people don't. And I just left it. I let, I watched his eyes kind of go and I watched it kind of sink in. And I know that that conversation will come up and I know I've been

Guest [00:46:23] kind of doing the same thing, but a little worried about how that's going over with my spouse.

Guest 3 [00:46:29] I think there's that constant sensitivity and talking with each other.

John Dehlin [00:46:35] This is great. I want to ask Natasha to talk a little bit about something I read in her notes. But Natasha, you wrote something about kids will eat you alive if you're not on the same page. But being on the same page doesn't mean you agree. Can you talk about that?

Guest 3 [00:46:51] Sure.

Guest 4 [00:46:53] Okay. So I call adolescents, especially the hypocrisy police and this is the number one thing that they get angry about and they can't believe their parents and blah, blah, blah. And they're so much smarter than all of us.

Guest 4 [00:47:08] And I was that way, too. So I do believe that what's much more important than coming to an agreement on this is what we're going to teach our children is more what are the basic philosophies and values underneath? And I love that he brought up common values. In fact, this is one of the first exercises I do with couples who are struggling with parenting issues, which, if you have kids, you're going to struggle with this. This is normal. Even if you don't have a crisis of faith, we struggle with this kind of stuff. So one of the exercises I give is you write down every single value that you believe you have in common with your spouse.

Guest 4 [00:47:44] You do this independently of each other. And so I'm kind of giving this as maybe you'll go do this an assignment, I guess, and then you spend a date night or two or three discussing these values. And this list can be a wonderful kind of fluid list that you add to over the years. Maybe you take something away over the years. It doesn't have to be fast right now, but it's kind of your best assessment of what your common values are.

Guest 4 [00:48:12] And because this is going to be the basis of what you teach your children, I don't care what religion you're in, okay? And these are the basics that your children are going to get from you. Now, what people in a faith of crisis situation are in is that you're in an opportunity that people who don't have this in their lives don't have. And by that, I mean that we like to live in this parental fantasy land that we have full control over our children and whatever we believe, they will believe. And, you know, we're going to raise them to be wonderful people. And we completely by, you know, go past their agency, which is so ironic because this is one of our core beliefs as LDS members for those of us who are believing LDS people.

Guest 4 [00:49:03] So don't underestimate your children. Just because they see you struggle or stumble is not going to be the base for their struggle and stumble. What is going to be the base of their struggle and stumble is if you lie about your struggle and stumble, that's where the hypocrisy police come in. And so for the example of mission, you can have a very upfront discussion with your adolescent, and your wife may say something like, you know what, honey? I believe that going on a mission is going to be A fabulous experience for you. I want this for you. I think that you will mature, whatever, blah, blah.

Guest 4 [00:49:47] You'll help people. You know, you'll have an opportunity here that you might not otherwise have. I want you to do this and you say, these are my concerns about you going on a mission. This is stuff that worries me. I just want to make sure that you understand these things before you go on a mission.

Guest 4 [00:50:02] Having that conversation in a place of tolerance, where the parents aren't like, rolling their eyes at each other and where the parents aren't diminishing the other is a much more valuable lesson to your child than what you're actually saying about the mission. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [00:50:21] Good stuff.

Guest 4 [00:50:22] And that's the united front versus the agreement.

John Dehlin [00:50:26] Thank you.

Navigating Church Practices and Non-Negotiable Issues

Dan Gallagher [00:50:28] This is a question that I had this morning as well, but never really got around to it. My problem with all of this is that there are certain things within the LDS Church that are. Where there's no wiggle room.

Dan Gallagher [00:50:42] Thomas S. Monson is a prophet. And so that's. That's the belief. So when my children go to church and they are taught that and they come home and I don't believe the same thing. How do you deal with those kinds of things where it's not like just a value that we have? We're talking about a tenant of. A tenant of a testimony that they are supposed to stand up and state as an. I know fact, and I don't share that belief. My husband does. How do you deal with those kinds of things that they see as concrete? And I do not. I think it would be very difficult to.

Dan Gallagher [00:51:21] In fact, it has been very difficult. When they come home from church and they. I mean, it's just. It's a statement of fact to them, but it isn't to me. And I don't know how. How do you express that? I. I mean, we're on the same page as far as values and as far as. As how we want to parent our children and the expectation we have for them and the boundaries we have for them.

Dan Gallagher [00:51:44] But those very core issues to the church. You know, when the prophet says it's either true or it's the biggest faith fraud perpetuated on humanity, I think there's a lot of gray in there. How do you address that with your kids?

Guest 4 [00:52:03] I don't know about all of you, but I don't know of one thing in the church that is an absolute. I can't think of one thing. Even the. Not murder, let's not murder people. Okay? But Nephi did it. And that was okay.

Dan Gallagher [00:52:15] But that's what they're taught when they go to primary. They go to primary and they sing Follow the Prophet, and they're just, they are not taught that there's any wiggle room in that at all.

Guest 4 [00:52:23] I understand that that's what they're not taught necessarily in their churches, but this is where you're in their church lessons. But this is where you have the opportunity as parents. And hopefully, if you have this common value approach as a couple, because really where you're going to come into problems as a couple, as a parenting couple, is if you're not okay with the one person saying, hey, these are my concerns about you going on a mission and the one parent saying, well, these are the reasons I, I want you to go on a mission. If you're not okay doing that, then that's a couple. That's a marital issue that affects your parenting.

Guest 4 [00:52:55] And we need to address that first. Because until you come to some kind of an agreement together on that, the kids are going to run over you because they're going to see that you're not a united friend. And they're going to have. There's going to be more room for confusion and for not understanding what's going on. But if you, for instance, the profit thing, you know, we're told on the one hand we're supposed to be doubting and asking and getting our own personal revelation. On the other hand, we're told everything that the prophet says is like it came out of the Lord's mouth. And yet we have things that, you know, Bishop Brigham Young said when he was a prophet that we no longer believe.

Guest 4 [00:53:28] I mean, you know, it's not that it's not, this isn't a black and white church. And whoever thinks it is, you know, we just need to kind of relook at that because there's lots of conflicting, you know, Adam and Eve, you know, it starts from the very beginning. They're not supposed to do it, but they're supposed to do it. What's black and white about that? It's very gray. So you're right. And so I guess, you know, if you want to say something like, you know, the prophet is a wonderful man, he leads this church, he's doing the best he can. He's trying to get answers for most people that need this kind of help.

Guest 4 [00:54:03] But you also have a responsibility to think about that. You know, that's a value that you could present as a couple that takes into account both of your belief systems.

Guest 3 [00:54:15] And I Think I totally agree with that. But I think it becomes really tricky, especially when the faith crisis is new and the kids are talking about this stuff and you're squirming because you're like, oh, you know, how do I say this without making the other spouse angry and without shaking this little kid up.

Guest 3 [00:54:34] And it's so nuanced in your life. It's so interwoven. It's not like. And I guess what I've come to discover is that it doesn't have to be big moments of sitting down with them. In fact, those usually backfire. These. Sit down and let me teach you. I don't believe this. Dad believes that.

Guest 3 [00:54:50] But for me it's become more of becoming really comfortable with what I do and don't believe and kind of being. I was more quiet during that phase while I was sorting it within. But then moment to moment throughout the day with the kids and again, each kid is so different.

Guest 3 [00:55:07] So the five year old was what, two, three during all this? So it's been really easy for me to. I mean, the girl prays to mother in heaven and no Shiva and all these big stories from other traditions versus, you know, my 10 year old is very still black and white. And then the teenager can understand metaphor and nuance.

Guest 3 [00:55:30] So trying to talk with them on their level, little tiny snippets at a time. Driving carpool home from high school with the kids that go to seminary together and they're talking about. I'm asking them, what are you learning? Book of Mormon, Laban went to get the plates. And I'm like, yeah. I always wondered about how, you know, how do you get out of there without all that blood all over him?

Guest 3 [00:55:55] And then I just listen to him go. But I get the conversation rolling. And then we drop off those kids. I don't want to terrorize them too much. Lean over to my son, I'm like, what do you think? He goes, mom, it's metaphor, you know, I'm like, yes, he gets it. But little things at a time where they're used to it and giving yourself a break because you're going to make a lot of mistakes as you navigate that. It can be awkward and. But don't expect like big, huge moments of shift. They'll happen, but it'll be more natural than that.

Guest 4 [00:56:27] I think.

Laurie Gallagher [00:56:31] I just wanted to add to that. Many years ago, a wise person told us, the magic is not in the program. The magic is in the child. We need to trust our children more if we want to do anything to help Them to see the inequities or the discrepancies or whatever is not right that we see. All we need to do is persuade them or recognize, acknowledge them as being observant when they say something, hey, I just noticed, like Laurie was saying, agree with them.

Laurie Gallagher [00:57:12] And when they see what appears to be a conflict in belief or practice in the church. One of the other things that I've learned is that no matter what I do, no matter how bad of a dad I am or how good of a dad I am, as far as my kids are concerned, I'm right. Let me rephrase that. It doesn't matter what my dad has done in his entire life, he is right.

Laurie Gallagher [00:57:41] I think that's just something that we do as children. And so if when those kids see those conflicts, they're going to look to us to find out how are mom and dad handling this conflict? And then it's more of how are we living?

Laurie Gallagher [00:57:59] And it's more about what do we believe? Not what do we not believe, not what are we fighting against. It's more how are we proactively living our life as an example to them. And I think that, that. I really think that that goes a lot further than, you know, sticking them in the middle and asking them to be the judge in our fight against what we see as wrong with church or the nation or the school or our neighbors or whatever.

Guest 5 [00:58:43] Now, I can see where you can bridge the gap between the spouses by meeting with common values and then approaching the children in a nuanced way to the way that, to the extent that they're able to accept it. But I still think kind of a follow up on the question below, there will be cases where there will be a fundamental disconnect that can't be bridged. I mean, to take the example, let's say we both agree this is a hypothetical example.

Guest 5 [00:59:07] We both agree that, you know, it's a value to be kind and treat others with respect. And if they go to church, they're gonna learn that. So that's good. But one of us believes that, you know, you should be kind and be respectful because the president of the church has encouraged us to do that. And the other one believes you shouldn't do it for that reason, you should do it because it's the right thing to do. Right? And you're going to go to church and you're going to hear you should do it because the president of the church says we should do it. And so you're going to.

Guest 5 [00:59:33] And you might have the one spouse deal with that by when the children come home from church saying, you know, there are other reasons you might want to be kind as well and kind of say that. But at some point, taking that kind of action could undermine the desires and wishes of the believing parent. Right. So when you reach something that is a fundamental disconnect that really isn't bridged by going to common values or approaching nuance, how do you deal with a situation like that?

John Dehlin [00:59:57] Did you have a response to his question or were you going to ask a different question?

Guest 2 [01:00:01] You know, as the questioning half of a marriage, I know our kind of implicit agreement was, was that I would never try to say anything to directly create problems, but kids can tell by what you don't say. And, you know, there are a lot of things that I emphasized according to my values, you know, humanitarian work and stuff like that. And there are a lot of. For instance, my son, I never said one word encouraging him to go on a mission until about two weeks before he finally says, you know, dad, I got to know, is this a good idea or not? And I basically said, you know, it can be a good thing for you. And I really had to choke that one down. But my son made his own choice. He's an iron rod rock, and there's nothing that I could say or do that would make him a different person, really.

John Dehlin [01:01:08] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to

John Dehlin [01:01:12] provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if

John Dehlin [01:01:16] you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about this

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John Dehlin [01:01:28] bulletin and ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two.

John Dehlin [01:01:32] Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton.

John Dehlin [01:01:36] Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixton.com that's sky with an E. S K Y E pixton.com thank you.

Supporting the Believer and Addressing Their Fears

Part 2 of 4 · Ep. 183

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories podcast takes a ton of work and depends solely upon listener support to keep this program alive. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org. Laurie, as I was listening to you talk about some of the fun little comments you'd make to your children, I had my believer hat on and was thinking about, as a believer, how disruptive and unsettling that might be to have even a comment made like he had a lot of wives or, you know, the prophet makes a lot of mistakes or whatever the comment might be. And I'm even a little bit uber sensitive about the fact that a lot of this kind of conversation, especially what I've said and maybe what some of the others have said, have been from sort of the disbelieving perspective. And so I'm interested if there's anyone who sort of puts themselves in the believer camp who's willing to maybe

Guest [00:01:11] share

John Dehlin [00:01:11] a feeling or ask a question or provide some commentary on to what extent we're being balanced in this discussion and whether there are topics that maybe, hopefully will be addressed or perspectives that so far haven't been really outlined. I know it's a really hard thing. It's putting people on the spot, but is there anyone who wants to sort of jump in and say where we either have it right or wrong or where we're missing the boat in reflecting the perspective of the believer?

Guest [00:01:46] You know, John, as I listened to you talk about your stepfather and his attitude toward the military and so forth, I was thinking of the fact that a lot of the way we see the military depends on the conflict they're engaged in.

Guest [00:02:03] The World War II GI is an incredibly noble person. Vietnam War, you fight an immoral war, it going to rub off on you. When you were talking about the fact that believers are terrified of change and then the term inoculation came up, I was recently thinking about the fact that people who are really devout believers of anything actually have shitty spiritual immune systems.

Guest [00:02:30] And what has to happen. This can't be balanced. It cannot be balanced because like you said, it's already been changed. And so what has to happen is people who are terrified of hearing a phrase like, well, actually, you know, Joseph Smith had a lot of wives being said in front of their children. They need stronger spiritual immune systems. That it has to be about the extent to which your faith can withstand challenges from other perspectives.

Guest [00:03:06] Because if you are that terrified of change, then you know something's wrong with your basic approach. Change should not be that threatening. It shouldn't. It's the fundamental process of life so in order to get to a place where balance can happen, there has to be more room for change.

Guest 2 [00:03:39] Since my husband, as a believer, isn't going to speak up for himself, I'm going to speak up for him. Sorry, I've been doing that for 20 years, 21 years. He is not terrified of change. He is not terrified of me. He has a very strong spirit and a very strong testimony, and I am very glad that he does.

Guest 2 [00:03:59] And it's not about fear that I don't think he fears me and I don't think he fears what I'm going to teach the children, that I'm going to go off and get tattooed and start drinking and start to lead my family astray, I think.

Guest 2 [00:04:19] And you can step in here at any time that you would like to. I think I will turn over the microphone. As he has expressed to me, his fear is that if my mind or my feelings or my belief could change about the church, it could change about him.

Guest 2 [00:04:43] And I think his fears have a lot more to do with the basic relationship that we have than, I think, in our conversations. I think he's really okay with me questioning and wondering and looking and searching. Never ever told me that I can't do that. And he's never said that that was a condition upon which we married, that I don't ever ask any hard questions. I think he just wants to be assured that our values are going to stay aligned. And I'm sorry, I know I'm probably talking too much, but I'm kind of hoping he'll take the microphone. But he's not. I do not think.

Guest 2 [00:05:23] I do not think he's afraid. I don't think he's afraid of change. I think he's a very strong person and the fact that he is here with me speaks volumes about him and his character and what he thinks of me and our relationship. And I'm profoundly grateful that he would show up here to support me. Thanks.

Guest 3 [00:05:51] Alright, Well, I have a little bit of a dilemma because I'm on the opposite side of your situation. I'm the disbeliever in my relationship and my wife is afraid that I'm going to teach the kids bad things and she is afraid that I'm going to become a drunk and do all the things that Mormons don't like. The reason I'm here is to find out how can I convince her otherwise. She is admittedly content in living in her bliss as a believer while I am not. And right now I'm just wondering what I can Say, because I can't just pull out all the issues and say, hey, look, Book of Abraham. Hey, look, DNA evidence. Because that just doesn't work. I learned that out the hard way. And I'm wondering what I can do to ease her into improving our relationship to where I can believe what I believe and she can believe what she believes.

John Dehlin [00:07:13] Okay, we'll try and address some of that and see if we can get some wisdom from the crowd before we do that. John, did you have a quick comment?

Dan Gallagher [00:07:24] In our marriage, I am the believer. Well, let me rephrase that. We are both believers. She believes somewhat differently than I do. Okay. But this is what I've tried to, you know, in my talking with her. I want her to express her beliefs to our children.

Dan Gallagher [00:07:47] And again, I have to stress that our children are a lot brighter and smarter and more fair, even the black and white ones, than what we give them credit for. And I grew up in Provo, Utah. I knew Joseph had lots of wives, was never a problem for me. I think that if, you know, if your children are exposed in a natural setting to all the stuff my kids come home and said, you ruined seminary for me. Because we learned all the stories at home before. You know, the way that it becomes not so much an issue is to be open and honest and not like you're trying to propagandize the other way, but just not keep it a secret.

Dan Gallagher [00:08:45] And the same can be true for the spouse as well. It's when you're, like you said, with your own experience. It's when you're struggling on your own that it's the hardest, because that's when the other person imagines the worst. Just be open about it.

John Dehlin [00:09:04] Okay. Are there.

Parenting from Different Belief Perspectives

Laurie Gallagher [00:09:08] Yes, Dawn, I have a question for the panelists. What do you say to the argument that not being on the same page as parents confuses kids and is not really a healthy way for them to grow up to have two parents presenting contradictory accounts of their spirituality.

John Dehlin [00:09:31] Let's take a start, Dan.

Guest 4 [00:09:34] Well, I think what happens is that we live in a sort of bubble in the Mormon world a little bit, because when I think of a lot of the marriages and families I've known that are not LDs, people navigate this all the time. Mixed faith marriages. I know people who are Jewish who've married Catholics or Protestants or you see a lot of different faiths come together so often and they just kind of figure out a way. And, you know, we have a kind of a model in Mormonism that's so strong that it's Hard to think outside of that.

Guest 4 [00:10:11] So that's a long way of saying that. I'm not sure I buy the argument that both parents have to have a same belief and same story, otherwise the kids get to be a mess and confused. Because I think kids have been growing up with parents who think different things for a very long time.

Guest 4 [00:10:27] And I think the way you remedy it is that you, you know, decide what you do agree upon, you know, and like I said, I think most people agree strongly on values, those sorts of things. So you plus you focus on those while at the same time teaching that yeah, mom and dad believed some different things.

Guest 4 [00:10:49] I mean that's how we approach it too. I mean just a few weeks ago My 10 year old, Laurie attends. I take my kids most of the time by myself when I attend. Laurie probably comes once a month or so, give or take.

Guest 4 [00:11:04] And so, and like I said, we've talked at different levels to each of our kids. My 10 year old, as we were pulling out just out of the blue said how come mom doesn't come to church this much?

Guest 4 [00:11:14] And he caught me. I was kind of late doing like a couple things and so I kind of just gave a very short, brief answer. I said, you know, mom and dad think different things about the church. And so, and so mom doesn't chooses not to, not to go as much. And it was kind of just a short quick thing and it was something I had meant to come back to a little later maybe that night, you know, talk to him more quietly, see if he had more questions. I never had a chance to, but he just kind of went, oh, okay, and then went back to fighting with his sister and you know, all the other stuff they do.

Guest 4 [00:11:46] But you know, it's not, we don't present to them that they have to and I don't present even as the one that stays active, that everything they believe in, everything they hear in church, they have to believe. That's not the way I was brought up in it. So you know, it's, you have to, I think both sides in this kind of question have to let go of some of the exact expectations they have as far as an outcome and make set those expectations at a more, you know, I mean, Laura and I both agree we want our kids to grow up with strong moral beliefs, you know, about honor and honesty and these things that we agree on.

Guest 4 [00:12:29] And they may grow up to be active Mormons, different from their mom, they may grow up to be non active or whatever, different from me. And we both have to kind of Let their paths go the direction they're going to go because we really can't control it and our three kids are very different from each other anyway. So I fully expect they're going to end up in some different places somehow. And I just don't know how that's going to come.

Guest 1 [00:12:54] Laurie, I'm just wondering.

Guest [00:12:55] Your 10 year old turned 8 after

Guest 1 [00:12:56] your crisis of faith. So was he or she, was he baptized? And are your five year old, are you going to have them baptized at 8 or how do you feel about that?

Laurie Gallagher [00:13:05] Well, I think it's important because it's his faith tradition and up until I've raised him to the 5, 4 and 5 was when I started to question and I was really nervous because I thought, you know, what's going to happen and is it going to be dogmatic. My oldest baptism wasn't that great of an experience, but. And we both gave him the option, do you want to, you know, and I termed it in terms of this is what Jesus did. He's eight.

Laurie Gallagher [00:13:35] This is what Jesus did. Do you want to be like, you know, do you want to be like Jesus or are you not ready? Do you want to wait to do it? And he just right off the bat, I really want to. And whether it's all because his friends were. But I saw that, I interpreted that as being here's my little 8 year old and all he wants to do is make good decisions and this is a good decision in his mind.

Laurie Gallagher [00:13:58] And it was a wonderful experience because all of our extended family came and supported this one little eight year old boy and there were wonderful little songs about Christ. We got to pick the songs and the primary presidency was there and he was.

Laurie Gallagher [00:14:13] I was really glad that I did it. I was steeled up to kind of have some negative moments, but I didn't. It was a really good one. But I think that when you're doing this thing where you're teaching both belief systems, it's going to confuse the kids. And I don't think that we should say it's not going to confuse them.

Laurie Gallagher [00:14:33] It's like you have this change put in front of you. I didn't ask for the change. I thought I'd be holding to that iron rod, making it to celestial kingdom. I didn't foresee this. And then I'm thrusting it on Dan whether he chooses it or not. We both have to adapt to that change. I like the Darwin quote where it says it's not the strongest or the fastest of the species that survive, but those who are most adaptable to change. And I think about that in marriage, can we adapt to not just this change, but all the changes that we get.

Laurie Gallagher [00:15:02] And so when I look at that, like will the children be confused? Probably from time to time they will. I've been confused even being raised Mormon. But the other option to them being confused or wondering is that, number one, if you only give them one way, and I eat my belief system and give them Dan's or vice versa is saying, number one, I don't trust you, my child, to make your own decisions, to listen to your own heart, to pray, to get your own answers. And number two, if I'm doing that and hiding my belief system where he is, I think that's way more damaging than them being confused and figuring it out out for themselves.

Laurie Gallagher [00:15:39] They're seeing that dad doesn't have a voice in this family or mom doesn't have a voice in this family. Dad and mom don't respect each other. And so I'm really adamant that not just me, that I should be able to teach my children and speak to them, but that they listen to Dan as well. And it took me a lot of peace to come to the fact that they can go to church and not become damaged by the things I was, I feel damaged by.

Laurie Gallagher [00:16:05] But because he's open to me to giving a balanced perspective, it's helpful. Yeah, I think I get away with it too, all these crazy comments of, you know, of my alternative views because I'm so accommodating and kind about the Mormon viewpoint. In fact, our kitty died, our 12 year old cat died last week and it was just, I told my 5 year old and it was just like she was sobbing in my arms and I so badly just wanted to say what my mom told me when my cat died when I was her age was, oh, he's waiting in the celestial kingdom for you to come.

Laurie Gallagher [00:16:43] And I just sat there like hurting, you know, and I was able to offer, you know, dad believes that there's, you know, and I don't know, maybe, maybe his body's just going to go back into the earth and grow into a tree and that's beautiful too. So I can offer both perspectives For a five year old, she probably just wants to believe that she's going to see her kitty again, you know, the 10 year old, 15 year old, different.

Guest 4 [00:17:09] Let me add just one quick the question on the mixed faith thing too. I grew up in a part member family and my dad didn't join until I was about 15 years old. So I'm kind of. It's maybe a little easier for me because I'm just accustomed to it growing up with parents that had different beliefs. I don't feel. Or maybe I am screwed up because of that.

Laurie Gallagher [00:17:31] I don't know.

Guest 4 [00:17:32] But it can be done. It doesn't have to be as hard as it seems like it might be.

Guest 1 [00:17:40] Yeah, I don't think there's any research to support that. Kids who are given different perspectives are going to grow up confused and meandering the world. And in fact, I think that we're actually giving them a jump start on real life because guess what?

Guest 1 [00:17:59] The Mormon bubble, you know, however protective you want to be is a false sense of security. They're already listening to different perspectives every day at school or with your extended family or, you know, and as they grow older, that will grow more and more. And so again, not that kids who grow up in a.

Guest 1 [00:18:23] Where both parents are the same, not that that's bad either, but I'm just saying this doesn't have to be bad either. This can be an opportunity to raise children in a different way, but in a way that still elicits respect and trust and all these kind of common values that we have.

Guest 1 [00:18:40] One other comment I wanted to make because there were some issues about change and fear and these kind of words that sometimes can feel provocative came up and change is fearful. There's no way around that. And as long as you are all a human being, which I think we all are in this room, that's just part of our makeup. Change brings about fear. It also brings about great opportunity and great growth and great.

Guest 1 [00:19:14] Just different ways to be able to look at things. So there's pros and cons to everything. To everything. So to say that we're fearful. Yeah, absolutely, we're fearful. And we don't have to be ashamed of that. We don't have to be ashamed of our fear, but we need to recognize it and not get stuck in fear. Because that's when we're fear based. When we're raising our children or we're staying in a marriage for fear based reasons, then everybody. That is when we have damage, long term damage.

Dan Gallagher [00:19:49] So kind of going along the last question about the practices like the baptism

Guest 3 [00:19:54] that you had, Laurie, what do you

Dan Gallagher [00:19:57] do or how do you react when Dan busts out the scriptures at 5am for two hours of scripture reading with your kids? I mean, that kind of stuff or, you know, the time's going to come when your boys may not want to go to young men's because there's some dynamics there that just aren't right. And he wants them to go. And you're saying, wait a minute, I don't think that that's the right thing. How do you navigate through that specific.

Laurie Gallagher [00:20:21] Well, first off, we laugh because I was the one pulling kids out of bed at 5am and dad was still in bed. You know, there was nothing wrong with that. He was never that type of Mormon. So I'm awful.

Guest 4 [00:20:32] I'm sorry.

Laurie Gallagher [00:20:35] He always says I was a good Mormon and he, you know. But yeah, so it does get tricky because at some point I have to be okay with the fact that I may be outside my children's temple wedding like a kid waiting outside the front door.

Laurie Gallagher [00:20:55] But at some point I have to. I have to give them that. That is their choice, that is their path, and only they can choose it. And I've done it. It hasn't brought me misery. I might have done it differently and made different choices, but hopefully I can be happy for them and support them in whatever they choose. He's had to make the same. We both had to come to that same realization that his boys may not go on missions and his parents may be really disappointed by that. But we've decided to teach the kids the very best we can with what we're given and stand by their decisions that they make as adults.

Laurie Gallagher [00:21:31] I struggle with young women's program a lot. Sexism within the church. Those are really hot buttons for me. I saw so much of my shaping as an adolescent teenage girl in the church from that program, not from my parents.

Laurie Gallagher [00:21:44] These really cool young women who were in the program teaching me all this stuff. I started to listen to them more than my mom. In many ways. It just affects you. And Dan and I have talked about that a lot. As far as we're going to have to wait until our daughter, she's five now, will wait until she's 14, 12 and gets in the program and how it's affecting her. And I'm hoping that by the time she's 12, she's able to grasp enough nuance that she knows.

Laurie Gallagher [00:22:15] I think it would be pretty foreign to her to be to experience the sexism and not think it's weird. So I'm hoping by that point she'll be ready. We've agreed that if I think it's damaging, we'll rediscuss it. If she really wants to be in the program, I'm not going to stop her from doing something she really wants to do. But can I temper it it's something really, you have to navigate gently as you go along. The scouting program, I'm not a big fan of either. And our eight year old, like, we didn't send him to scout camp this summer, but he goes when he wants to be with his friends. Same with our 15 year old. Yeah, we just.

Dan Gallagher [00:22:55] So do they pit you against each other? So do you ever get well? Dad or mom doesn't go to church and so. Or mom doesn't read scriptures with us, so why should I have to? I mean, does that ever happen?

Laurie Gallagher [00:23:07] Not yet.

Guest 4 [00:23:10] My oldest, about two years ago started expressing to us, you know, some doubts. He doesn't even know if he believes in God. And one, and one day he was like, he brought up, you know, do I have to go to church if I'm not sure if I believe in God? And my instinct was first, oh no, what's going on here? And then I thought, I thought for a second, I'm like, well, if I were to leave you home, I wouldn't be letting you play your Nintendo the whole three hours. And he went, oh, and then he got on his tie and went to church.

Guest 4 [00:23:45] You know, so there's. Sometimes you have to see what the real, you know, in the mission field they say to resolve concerns, get to the point, but to the heart of your question, you know, from my standpoint, I would like my kids to take to experience enough of the church to see if they can take the good from it and then make their own decisions about, you know, are they going to believe and things like mission and temple, marriage, that's really up to them. And I'm not going to create a thing that I'm going to be, you know, you're going to be a disappointment to me if you choose one way or another.

Guest 4 [00:24:20] As far as the stuff when they're kids, like seminary youth, youth programs and that, you know, we really take a flexible approach. I'm not going to push something if it's causing pain for them, if their Scout troop, if they don't enjoy the activities and they don't care about going through the ranks and they don't get along with the other scouts there. I'm not going to push that.

Guest 4 [00:24:42] I do bring them Sundays with me. I think it's important to kind of, you know, have that experience as lds. My oldest attends seminary and he actually seems to like it even though he gets up really early. So, you know, it's kind of a customized approach and you have to. And what I had to let go of when we had Our conversation with our daughter is that we may have to tailor it a little bit for each kid because our oldest is a really laid back kind of kid and isn't really the type. I think that's taking everything literally and having it cause pain.

Guest 4 [00:25:14] Our others might. And we might have to change our approach a little bit depending on what we perceive their needs are. So I think both parents have to be open to some degree that there's not a universal approach that works, but you have to also kind of let where the kids want to go, you know, so if your kids want to be there and you're not sure, it's a great thing. I kind of.

Laurie Gallagher [00:25:43] It was interesting because the fear plays in on both sides. We can say it happens to the believers, but it happens to us too. So it's, you know, you get fearful of what are they going to turn into.

Laurie Gallagher [00:25:55] And so, for example, my son went last fall to a fireside, and when he came home, come to turn out, find out it was a fireside on Prop 8, we live in California. And I said, well, what did you think? So what I've learned to do is ask a lot of questions. What do you think God looks like? What do you feel like when you pray? So when he came home, I said, what? Oh, what did you think? I didn't want to make assumptions about what they said.

Laurie Gallagher [00:26:20] He said, they want us to vote yes on 8, and this is why. And I said, well, what did you think? And he said, I don't understand why gay people want to get married anyway. And that killed me. I was like, they've done it, you know, they're turning my son.

Laurie Gallagher [00:26:35] And I said, okay, chill out. And I sat him down and I said, you know, this is what I think, and this is what my gay friends think. And I have, you know, good yoga students who are a couple who've been together for 15 years. And I told him about my friends and his head cocked, and I reminded myself, I can't choose what he believes. I can only offer him. Can I not be afraid of him seeing a perspective other than mine?

Laurie Gallagher [00:27:05] You know, can I teach him to just sit and that he's. I'm going to be okay with whatever he chooses? Well, two and a half weeks later, I noticed every time Dan and I would talk about Prop 8, his ears would perk up and his eyes would go like that.

Laurie Gallagher [00:27:21] And sure enough, after he'd processed it, I'd say, after the election, after it all settled down, he's really come to a mature understanding of the Deep issues of that. He's 15. That's age appropriate. But we have to watch the fear that the church is going to ruin our children. And I'm not afraid of them learning other perspectives other than my own. Now.

Guest 1 [00:27:46] I think the focus on flexibility there is really great. And I think again, fear on both sides. You're afraid if they don't believe in the church, you're afraid if they do believe in the church. So I mean, there's, you know, and there's good things on both and there's bad things on both. And so just kind of. And the sooner your children learn that, and most of them know that already intrinsically and the more we can be an asset to them. They're kind of like the poster children for this whole issue. So I think that's great. Oh, and my one. Sorry, my one comment is we, I think sometimes are under this idea that we have so much control when we don't.

Guest 1 [00:28:24] And the number one thing I hope you can visualize is the moment that you choose to have a child with another person is the moment you give up half your say. I mean, there's a sperm and there's an egg and they both have genetic makeup and personality traits you have no control over.

Guest 1 [00:28:46] So this idea that we are going to stop our other spouse from influencing our child or that we're going to be the main influencer in that child's life is false to begin with. They're already half not your DNA.

Guest 1 [00:29:00] So, you know, you just have to kind of again, be open to that tolerance of difference and what kind of rich conversations can come from that. And I think you'll be surprised how amazing it can be, you know, to think outside the box.

John Dehlin [00:29:16] And I'll just add, because it's following on. I have seen many couples where the children become footballs in this battle between belief and disbelief where I hope you understand that when I say believer and disbeliever, it's within the context of this dilemma we're talking about.

John Dehlin [00:29:37] You know, non Mormons have lots of beliefs and active Mormons don't believe things. So please understand when I use the term believer and disbeliever that it's in that context. But I've seen disastrous consequences when, let's just say the believing spouse is excited to have her kids go to church and the disbelieving spouse really doesn't want his kids going to church. And so he does everything he can to allure the kids to keep them from going to church by saying, hey, if you don't go to church, we'll go to the park, we'll go skiing, we'll go have a picnic. It'll be awesome. But it's your choice, you know, and the mom is like, you're doing everything you can to make him or her not want to go.

John Dehlin [00:30:20] You're totally spoiling this. Or even with baptism, the same type of thing where the kids become footballs in a bigger contact sport between the parents. And I could just say that I think that putting kids in that situation, let's say that you're the believer for a second, putting your kids in that situation is going to be far more damaging than.

John Dehlin [00:30:47] Than even you and your spouse deciding to leave the church. And having the church never be a part of their lives again, making them the object of a battle between you two, I think is one of the biggest disservices you could ever give to your kids.

Guest 1 [00:31:03] It really goes back to the core values that when you do that, you're doing it in the name of your values, but you're espousing everything that doesn't match with your values. An example is more than what you know. I mean, the example is what you're teaching your kids. So that's the catch 22. All of you are in. You're in a huge catch 22. And it's interesting because I see it as a great avenue for your own personal progression. And I hope you take on that challenge, that it can be something that will challenge you in ways that you never thought possible and you might be really surprised at what you're capable of.

Sharing Personal Experiences From the Room

John Dehlin [00:31:38] And so something I'd love to explore today, for those who are willing to share or who are interested, is how, if any of you are struggling, getting on the same page where like Natasha said, are any of you struggling, getting on a united front like Dan and Laurie seem to be clearly are, Are any of you struggling with that so that the kids don't end up being footballs? Or maybe you guys have all had that figured out. But I'm going to let you guys ask those questions or raise those issues. But I just want to strongly caution you against that. If you love, if you're a believer and you love the Lord and you believe in family values, don't do that to your kids.

John Dehlin [00:32:19] And if you're a disbeliever and you want your kids out, try and temper that knowing that you want your kids best interests at heart. Now, we had a comment here, but Paul, you raised your hand. Is this comment who has the. The mic? Is this part of this conversation or is it a new topic? New question? Paul, was your comment following on new topic? Okay, let's go here and then over to Paul.

Guest 2 [00:32:45] Is it Lori or Laurie? Laurie, we listened to your. The podcast involving you two, which was wonderful. And to use a Mormon cliche, you seem to have a really sweet spirit about you that I've been of. Lacking. And I've been accused of.

Guest 2 [00:33:09] I've been accused of kind of being hardened, of hard or harsh. But one of my dilemmas is that inherent within the culture is a. The word marginalization has come up several times today. And within that marginalization is condescension.

Guest 2 [00:33:31] I've had a bishop in meaning. Well, I've had a bishop tell my daughter to stay close to my wife. She's the strong one. I've had a neighbor tell my daughter to quit going to mountain bike races with me on Sunday and get to church where she belongs.

Guest 2 [00:33:54] And that really triggers the fight aspect of my fight or flight mechanism, so to speak. And you seem to be dealing well with that much better than me. And so I'm kind of curious as to how you deal with the cultural portrayal of you as the weaker one, so to speak.

Laurie Gallagher [00:34:20] I think it's not. It's almost not. Not fair in the sense that we haven't had that. So for you to say those things have been said to your kids, I do just really feel for that because those things haven't been said to my kids.

Laurie Gallagher [00:34:38] Yeah, it is huge. And it's really hard to navigate that gracefully. We went in when I finally. We started to get a handle on being on the same page. We went into the bishop and sat down with him and I met with him and I spilled it. I can't have a calling. I don't.

Laurie Gallagher [00:35:02] I was a sunbeam teacher and they asked me, you know, they gave me the new manual. And the first lesson was, I have a heavenly father in heaven who loves me. And I realized I can't teach that. I don't believe that anymore.

Laurie Gallagher [00:35:16] I had shifted so far and it was sucking me dry just being there. And I really was ready to go off and explore my new teaching. So I sat down with him and I laid out with the bishop.

Laurie Gallagher [00:35:30] I'm not here to be a project and I don't want people coming by. I don't want people trying to reconvert me. I've gone through this on my own. This is where I am. And he asked me a lot of hard questions. It wasn't pleasant, but following that conversation, I still made it really Clear. I kept my cool. I told them what I expected, where my lines were and what I wanted. But following that, the following week, Dan went in to talk to him. And what I had said in there in the meeting was what I want from you as a ward and as a bishop, to support my husband, who's going to be coming alone with children a lot more, you know, and I want you to know where we are and not try and think I'm wavering.

Laurie Gallagher [00:36:16] This is where I am. Dan went in a week later and talked to the bishop and said, basically said, if I have explained it, explained the situation, they had a good talk. But part of the talk he said, if I have to choose between the church and my wife, I will choose my wife.

Laurie Gallagher [00:36:33] And that really laid a groundwork for them as far as us and our relationship, where he supported me, where I was at, and made it clear to the bishop and the ward, they've been really sensitive. I think probably because of that, really sensitive.

Laurie Gallagher [00:36:50] And I think a lot of it is how Dan handles it at church. Our son has hair almost as long as mine. He wears his white shirt and passes the sacrament tray. It's longer, longer now. And so people make comments, kind of half joking, but I think they really want to push us to more orthodoxy.

Laurie Gallagher [00:37:08] And Dan goes, yeah, he's got. He just jokes it off. He's got to wear the long hair where he can. And he points to his balding spot.

Guest 1 [00:37:15] You know,

Guest 4 [00:37:17] actually I point to the painting of Jesus.

Laurie Gallagher [00:37:23] So we try to present this unified front with each other. But it's a fine line to work in kindness with honesty, defining that line so that people don't walk over it with still allowing them to move back and forth through the line. You know, it's tricky. I think you'd asked this tricky question about how do you not become viewed as being angry and bitter and the atheist and the.

Laurie Gallagher [00:37:55] And I think the trick is to not become the bitter. You can only not get that viewpoint by not being the bitter, angry, drunk, apostate. You know, that's the way to combat it. So when I go to church, if it bothers me, if I'm in a lesson that bothers me, I just leave. I unplug it and I leave. It's not for me today if I'm in church, but when I walk in, I smile, I hug my friends, I don't put my issues onto them. So I think that I am seen as being. I think I confuse people a lot because they are like, why is this happy woman coming in the only way to prove that it's working for me and that I'm happy is to actually be happy.

Laurie Gallagher [00:38:44] And I'm sorry, I'm going on and on. When you're going through faith crisis, you're not happy. So that's the hard part. You're angry, you're frustrated. And I come back to over and over we can project out on other people. You know, the church does this and they're teaching that. And this person did this to my children. And I don't like this. But it comes back to all that stuff comes back to us. And what I've learned for myself, to not feel bitterness and anger and frustration is to take really hard looks at myself and to start settling in my own beliefs and trying to make peace within myself. But I feel for your situation.

Guest 1 [00:39:27] I don't know where you and your wife are at as far as your own marital relationship, but I do think that presenting a united front like she's talking about as a spousal unit can be a huge part of this. That this is not, you know, where the believer spouse gets to go to church and everybody boo hoos and, you know, it's a big cry fest for that person. And then it is kind of like the one person is villainized and seen as the bad person. So that's more of a marital issue. Now with your children and when your children are involved, those are really crappy situations.

Guest 1 [00:39:57] And my fight comes out too, when my children are, it's the mama bear, you know. But if we can reframe that as a learning opportunity and it is a chance where we can say, well, you know, yeah, there are going to be times when people think low of us or when we're put up against unfair criticism that happens to all of us.

Guest 1 [00:40:16] An opportunity to talk about that with your kids and how are we going to deal with this and how are we going to handle that and do we believe what they say about us? But those are all conversations that are much easier and much more effective if you and your wife are on the same page. Now, if you and your wife are not, then there probably needs to be some marital work to be done first.

John Dehlin [00:40:37] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about this episode through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, family newsletter, or through your ward bulletin and ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two. Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Check them out@claytonpix pixton.com or skypixon.com that's sky with an E S K Y pixton.com thank you.

Part 3 of 4 · Ep. 184

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories podcast takes a ton of work and depends solely upon listener support to keep this program alive. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org. What I'd like to do. We have talked a lot about the children. We haven't talked about the relationships at all. And as Natasha so wisely said, when the kids are gone, you're going to just have each other.

John Dehlin [00:00:31] And I think that's important. So I put Natasha on the spot to come up with a good 30, 45 minutes of leading a discussion. My biggest question is how to get a disbeliever to be empathetic with the perspective of a believer and vice versa. And I don't know where you guys, if you guys are all there and you've nailed that, what I tend to think is that in the way that this discussion has been going, there's a lot of believers thinking this makes me really uncomfortable. I don't know how I'm ever going to feel comfortable with my spouse.

John Dehlin [00:01:05] And I know that the disbelievers are suffering with similar things reciprocal. So I'm going to give Natasha some time to address these things. But before I do, I want to address Paul's question before we move on.

Guest [00:01:20] So.

Dan Gallagher [00:01:22] Well, I think my comment was going to be along the lines of where you're going. I was just making an observation that, well, if you had two marriages where one marriage was a Presbyterian and a Lutheran and they went to church, you know, at the scale of American norms and which is not that often, you know, the issues of what's the nature of the Trinity are not going to be stressful in the marriage. Right. And if you had, on the other extreme, a marriage where it's, you know, Orthodox Muslim, raised an educated madrasa with an Orthodox Jew, then religious issues are going to be extremely stressful, you know, when it comes to observing, you know, the use of electricity on the Sabbath and so forth.

Dan Gallagher [00:02:03] And so I guess my observation is what I keep hearing in terms of how do you cope with this issue or that issue as a couple is try and find ways to be less dogmatic because the more hardcore you are in your belief and firm you are in non negotiables about your faith, the more you're going to have a stressful situation in the marriage when you don't agree on that point.

Dan Gallagher [00:02:30] And I didn't. I just wanted to make the observation comment. I actually would be curious to see how this concept plays out as we start talking about navigating the couple issues later.

John Dehlin [00:02:39] The only thing I'll say Is that in an orthodox religious perspective, dogmatism is a virtue. Right. So that's difficult. And I'll tell you that within the culture of some ex Mormon communities, it is the same.

Dan Gallagher [00:02:54] Oh, yeah, Yeah. I think you can be dogmatic on both sides. And I think to the extent that both partners in the marriage are able to sort of relax about the dogmatic aspects of their belief systems, you'll have less tension and stress. But to do that may. There may be a value disconnect in doing so. I mean, to ask someone who is a core, hardcore believing Mormon to relax on the whole, you know, the prophet said, we, we need to follow this guidance is a value disconnect. And likewise, if someone is an ex Mormon who feels very strongly that they were lied to, you know, the whole don't worry about the kids going and hearing this message can also be a huge value disconnect.

Dan Gallagher [00:03:38] And I think that. So I think that even if you had willingness to be less dogmatic in the marriage, you would still face this struggle to say whether you're comfortable or okay from a moral standpoint with making those compromises,

Guest [00:03:57] the issue of having empathy for the other person's position. And, you know, you know, I mean, I haven't. I have been a disbeliever for over two decades, and I haven't had to deal with it with a spouse, but I have dealt with it with my family of origin a great deal. And there are ways, of course, in which, I mean, my mother was buried on Good Friday. My mother died in March. And everybody was so upset it was going to ruin Easter for us. And I was the one, I'm, you know, the atheist who said, come on, you guys, Mom's being buried on Good Friday.

Guest [00:04:40] Can you think of a better day in the entire calendar for mom to be buried? You know, it worked out okay for Jesus. And, you know, I don't even believe in the resurrection, but I was the one who had to point this out to them. And, you know, but one of the reasons it's hard when you're on the other side is, you know, how they talk about you because you've heard, you've been part of conversations where you talk about Uncle Johnny and where you talk. And so, you know, what really gets said about people like you. And so, yeah, you can think back, well, this is how I felt. This is what it was like to feel this way. And I know this is important, important to them and it helps them and

Natasha Helfer [00:05:30] blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Guest [00:05:31] But you still know that there's a Way in which empathy for you is not a value or a virtue, it is, again, a threat. And you think, well, why should I extend to these people something they don't want and seem unwilling to give to me?

John Dehlin [00:05:55] Good stuff. All right, Natasha, I'm going to let that be kind of the segue to introduce you, and I'm going to trust you that you will give Holly her fair consideration. And, Paul, as we kind of try and navigate this. Is that all right?

Natasha Helfer [00:06:12] Meaning the two people that just spoke. Okay. Gosh, there's just so many things that I would love to talk about, of course. And there's so many different situations. And I could spend, I'm sure, hours with, you know, each one of you individually or as a couple, discussing all the nuances of each individual situation. Because although we speak in generics in a conference like this and kind of general ways that maybe can be helpful, I know that there are specifics to each situation, that sometimes there are exceptions to the rule, and there are even maybe exceptions to what I present at this time. So, of course, my general offering to you today will be helpful at some level, but it may not be helpful, you know, in a totality, saying that I'll get started on kind of.

The Emotional Heart of a Mixed-Faith Marriage

Natasha Helfer [00:07:01] I started thinking we're talking almost exclusively about parenting, which of course is a huge concern for all of us. We want to be good parents, but the heart of any good parenting relationship or. Yeah, a good parenting relationship is usually a marital or at least a co parenting relationship. So whether or not you're divorced or not, you still can offer a co parenting relationship to your children, which is of extreme value and more valuable, really, than most other things that you can offer them. So I want to talk about

Guest [00:07:38] what

Natasha Helfer [00:07:39] I like to call the four intimacies. And I'm sorry, I'm visual, so you'll just have to put up with my. But I see. And this is just. There's no research to back me up here. This is just kind of something I've come up with. But I see people having. First of all, we like to think of intimacy as just sex. And I'm not in that camp. So intimacy for me is physical, spiritual, all these other things. So I see one area of intimacy that we share with our spouse is that being emotional, and then another one is intellectual and another one is spiritual, and then another one is physical.

Natasha Helfer [00:08:19] So this is kind of four. And I'm not saying that there can't be more things added to this, but this in general, I think is where most people are connecting with one another. And I think the healthier marriages tend to do a good job of balancing out these four areas of your relationship. I think, unfortunately, in orthodox religion or traditional religion, we tend to rely on this one a whole lot.

Natasha Helfer [00:08:45] So we may not have maybe a great sex life, and we might not even really talk about anything that's intellectual or share any ideas. We may share some feelings, but we go to church every week together, and we have a shared value system together. And, and we know how we're going to raise our kids. And a lot of your value as a couple can be based on this one area.

Natasha Helfer [00:09:12] So when that's stripped away for whatever reason, then you're left feeling like you have nothing. And so what I have found useful in working with couples with crisis faith crisis issues is to really start looking at where are you in these other three areas and how do you redefine your spiritual intimacy? So in other words, not that it needs to be completely at a zero now because you have different ideas of who Joseph Smith is, but how are you going to recreate a different definition?

Natasha Helfer [00:09:47] And I guess what I'm saying at some level can also be true for family members, because I know you brought up like extended family. And not that we share physical intimacy with our extended family, but we do share a lot of these other intimacies with our families. And so it can be useful maybe in some kind of abstract way in that sense. So emotional intimacy is. How good are we at sharing our feelings, our thoughts, our day, you know, just kind of. And how do we.

Natasha Helfer [00:10:22] When we have emotions? So whether it's anger or sadness, especially the emotions that are difficult to deal with. I mean, it's always easy to hang out with somebody who's happy, I guess, but happy is there too. And content all these emotions, when we're feeling these ways, how do we relate as a couple? So in other words, can we share anger in our relationship and still feel safe? Can we share sadness in our relationship and still feel safe? Or if we share these types of feelings, does it somehow wipe away some type of foundation? Our intellectual intimacy is our ideas.

Natasha Helfer [00:11:02] Some of this can correlate with spiritual in the sense of. I mean, for many, the journey out of the LDS church is an intellectual one. You know, you're reading books, you're finding out new information. But it doesn't have to be just religious ideas. It can be politics, it can be, you know, what's going on in the world, what's going on in our community.

Natasha Helfer [00:11:26] You know, are we able to talk to each other about these kinds of things? Do we know what we think about these kinds of things? Do we automatically, oh, well, my husband's a Republican, so I guess I am too, kind of thing, or do we formulate our own kind of ideas about these things and talk about them and when we don't agree, what's that like? Okay, is it safe to not agree on these ideas or not?

Natasha Helfer [00:11:53] Spiritual, obviously, is kind of this idea of common values. And many times that is having the same religion, but sometimes it isn't. And you can still have spiritual intimacy without being in the same religion. And of course, physical intimacy is our sexuality. It's our sensuality.

Natasha Helfer [00:12:10] It's things like massage. It's things like, are we comfortable holding hands? Are we comfortable showing affection? So it's not just sex? And, you know, these kind of four areas of our lives kind of start giving us a more holistic view to our relationships. Does this resonate with anybody? Or. Okay, so one thing that I would encourage you, if you're struggling in your marriage right now because of the faith in crisis, I think that this is a very important thing to start looking at is where are our strengths? Where do we do well and where do we maybe not do so well and start assessing what is it that we need to focus on? Okay, any questions about this or any comments or anybody want to share any experiences around it? Yes, thank you.

Guest 2 [00:13:08] I think one of the questions I have, we're really new to all of this. We're new to everything. We're new parents. We've only been married for three years, and now we're new to this religion thing. Conflict and something that I. I'm supposed to be the believer, but something that I am struggling with is I don't really know what to expect because I know John mentioned, like, for a while, you're in a really dark place. And it seems like there's this whole process of you go from believing, then you start investigating things and you become a non believer. Then you're really angry and bitter. And I'm just waiting like, okay, what's after this?

Guest 2 [00:13:47] What's after this? It's really scary for me. And I feel like the four intimacies you've talked about, like, I try to use the emotional things where we talk about his feelings about the church and how learning that Joseph Smith had multiple wives, how that made him feel. And then we try to do the intellectual where I ask him, you know, what do you. How do you feel about Proposition 8? How do you feel about blacks in the priesthood? How do you feel about women in the church and things like that. But I just, I don't know. I guess what I'm trying to ask, I'm not very articulate, is, you know, first of all, what should I expect for the next.

Guest 2 [00:14:25] What's the next phase so I can prepare myself and how can I apply like these four intimacies to, I don't know, us working together through it, if that makes sense.

Natasha Helfer [00:14:37] As far as stages, I mean, you know, the one thing that's like really great as far as stages is grief. Like you pretty much open up any psychology book and there's like the five stages of grief, you know, and that can be useful and it can give you an idea of expectations. But I've never seen any book that say the five stages of marriage or the five stages of, you know. And so I do think that yes, there is a certain process that happens, but where that road leads for different couples, for different individuals is not always going to be necessarily the same. And so there is a level of ambiguity.

Natasha Helfer [00:15:16] This is a big word that we talked a lot about in my school. And people are naturally uncomfortable with ambiguity. We want to be in control, we want to know what to expect and we want to know what's in our future. And so when all of that is kind of taken away from us, then all of a sudden we're in that fear based mode. Kind of like, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to expect, I don't know if my husband's going to do. Who knows? What if he can do this, what else can he do? I think you mentioned something like that.

Natasha Helfer [00:15:43] If you can go down this road, what other roads could you go down that I'm not even aware of? So again, we have a false sense of security in our marriages. Sometimes thinking, oh yeah, I know my partner, I know that we'll be pretty much okay. And then all of a sudden we're hit with something and all those conceptions are kind of lost. And so it is kind of. So I guess I don't have a great answer for that. Do you have.

Dan Gallagher [00:16:07] I was going to say, I know a few people who have gone through a Christ of faith. I was actually there when John was going through it too. And I think to the disbeliever, the process of losing your faith is a grieving process. I mean, I think that it was of high value to you and you're starting to let it go. And I think that most of the time what I've seen from talking to people is that the bargaining phase has happened before. You're coming out and talking about openly about the way you feel and that you're going to go through, you know, anger and eventually arrive in acceptance.

Dan Gallagher [00:16:46] In a lot of the cases that I've been personally involved with, I know there are other cases to it, but for me, it felt like it was a grieving process, and I felt like I went through those stages. Pretty textbook. And I know a lot of other people who would say the same thing.

Natasha Helfer [00:16:57] And you are both grieving on a different level, you know, but what you're really grieving is kind of the lost idea of what you thought you were building together or the lost world. So even though you may both be coming from it from a different perspective, you're really kind of grieving the same thing.

John Dehlin [00:17:14] Yeah, I'd like to add a little perspective. I think that, you know, I always draw this parallel to the intellectual crisis of faith and the gay community and the homosexual community. And one of the things that Carolyn Pearson talks about in her book no More Goodbyes was about when her husband and her got a divorce and he went into San Francisco and kind of lived downtown in San Francisco in the 70s, and how she was not crazy about the culture that her husband Gerald was thrown into. And I sometimes have tried to be an advocate in the ex Mormon community for.

John Dehlin [00:17:56] For processing the anger, but then moving to a more constructive place. And I wish that there was more positive reinforcement in that regard in some of the disaffected Mormon communities to try and nurture a little bit more health. Just what's that calling? That will come for sure.

Advice for Both Believers and Disbelievers

John Dehlin [00:18:11] But so I want to say first off that the disbeliever and I tried to talk about this in the last three hours. In the first three hours, you absolutely have to at some point do as we talked about, have your life be about what you're going to be about, not about what you left behind. And so I do want to challenge the disbelievers to process, go through their stages, but then learn to define themselves not by what they were fooled or how they were misled or how they wasted their time, but, like, what are they going to stand for now and what positive things are they going to do?

John Dehlin [00:18:45] I want to encourage that, but I also want to tell the believers that they can be an important factor in the constructive development of their disbelieving spouse. And I'll give you a positive example and negative example. The negative example comes from some reading of Terry Warner, who's a BYU professor who wrote a book called Bonds that Make Us Free. And he has this concept called collusion, which I don't know anything else to the book, but I remember this concept of collusion. And collusion sort of is like this. You know, the couple starts out. You know, the couple starts out in the same place. Let's just say in theory, no one's ever in the same place, but let's just say there's this continuum, and the couple kind of starts out there, but then the husband starts feeling uncomfortable about the church.

John Dehlin [00:19:33] And let's say in this case, it's the husband. And so the wife feels a little bit nervous. And so as the husband starts slackening his beliefs a little bit, well, the wife moves in this direction and she starts becoming a little bit more conservative. And when he starts voicing his concerns, she starts developing this habit of reacting and trying to neutralize and counterbalance. And what they end up doing is just pushing each other in the opposite directions. And I've seen this happen to the point where the believing spouse is just unbearably orthodox, fundamentalist, insufferable, and the disbeliever is. I got him confused. And the disbeliever is just angry and bitter and resentful, and it's horrible.

John Dehlin [00:20:16] That's not the road to go down. So there's another option, and it's one that my wife was very effective in using. When I turned to her and said, I'm not sure the church is what it claims to be, first she had the tears, but then she said, okay, John, I trust you. What do you want to do?

John Dehlin [00:20:36] And that you would think I'd run and, okay, let's all resign. And no, I was like, okay, well, now you've given me that trust and responsibility. I want to honor and treasure that. I don't want to do anything rash that's going to destroy our family. So I'm going to take this more carefully because I see that you've trusted in me to kind of give me a journey. And I don't know if that's always possible. And sometimes maybe the disbelieving spouse won't honor that trust appropriately and they'll abuse it, misuse it. But I want to believe that if you can show that type of love and acceptance and confidence and trust, maybe there's a way that you can help them in their journey of healing and rebuilding instead of pushing them more and more in the direction.

John Dehlin [00:21:20] Though I don't want to ever blame the believer for any lack of constructive acts that the disbeliever may engage in. Does that make sense? And so that's a little bit. The other thing I'll just say is that I've seen people get stuck in disaffection for 5, 10, 20 years. It's not fun.

John Dehlin [00:21:40] And so what comes after disaffection? It takes a strong person to rebuild and to start redefining their self concept around other things than being an ex Mormon or former Mormon or anti Mormon. And so I think some of the things Natasha said are very effective.

John Dehlin [00:22:02] And I think the extent to which you guys are equally yoked at constructive activities, I want to discourage the disbeliever from this narcissistic thing, that it's always got to be about their pain and journey. They're the only ones suffering. Let's talk about the church. For 10 years straight. Every time we have a chance to talk, let me dump on you all these historical things and problems that I have. You can just. You can make the other spouse just disappear, as if their interests and concerns are just irrelevant because all that matters is your crisis of faith. And so I want to caution the disbelievers to realize that half of your, if, if it's going to be half, have half of your intellectual discussions be about the church, half of your emotional ones, and try to be proactively acknowledging that your believing spouse has her or his own interests and concerns and hobbies.

John Dehlin [00:22:52] And don't be so selfish and narcissistic that it's always got to be about you and your pain. Because I've seen marriages where the believing spouse is like, yeah, my husband told me that he can't be there for me because he's going through a crisis of faith. So I'm just kind of managing the children and finding other venues for my own emotional and spiritual and intellectual needs. Because my husband says he just can't be there for me right now. And I hope you never. I hope neither of you do that to each other, I guess. Holly, were you okay? Okay, Carl.

Laurie Gallagher [00:23:22] Sorry. I think this discussion of the four intimacies is really good. What struck me in thinking about my own marriage is that, you know, sometimes I think it's just good to focus on what's working and to maybe downplay the spiritual realm that's not working. And I think we forget that, you know, life is a broad kind of experience that includes a lot of different types of experiences. And we don't have to just focus 100% of our attention on the spiritual area where it's not working.

Natasha Helfer [00:23:58] You know, right along with that, I love that because we tend, I hear people saying all the time, we're so opposite. I guess we attracted each other because we're so opposite. We're just night and day. The fact is you're 95% like your spouse, but the 5% is what you notice because that's what bugs you. You wouldn't be with your spouse if you weren't pretty similar, especially maturity level wise. You wouldn't have attracted them. You can only attract people that are kind of at your same level. But we start living and we start noticing the differences and then all of a sudden we kind of have this effect with differences when we have 95% of the things in common and we've completely lost size of that.

Guest [00:24:39] A couple things you said, John, I want to respond to when you mentioned Carolyn Pearson talking in her book about how she was unhappy with where her husband went. What I remember is how jealous she was of the fact that he blossomed and that she just was stuck. And then the other thing responding to her, you said, make sure that at least half of what you talk about is, is not the church. At least half of what you talk about is something else. And I would say, make it more than that, please.

Natasha Helfer [00:25:12] Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Guest [00:25:14] And I actually have gotten to be so close to my nieces and nephews because when I go home to family reunions and stuff, they're the only ones who don't talk about the church. I mean, there'll be these conversations where everybody's like, this is my calling and this is what I'm doing and blah, blah, blah, and this is what we talk. And so I'm like, to my nephews, I'm like, so, so how's kindergarten? And they're the only ones who will actually have conversations with me that aren't about their callings or visiting, teaching or something. And it's like, you know, I actually have some interesting ideas and I would like to talk about them sometime. And so, yeah, because everything you listed when up there was about the church and, you know, go see a movie.

Compatibility, Grief, and Deciding Whether to Stay

Natasha Helfer [00:26:03] Well, one of the things that I want to bring up too is that a lot of times people are wondering, are we going to be now compatible? In other words, is this a big enough deal in our lives that we're going to have to split over this? And that's something that comes up a lot.

Natasha Helfer [00:26:19] And I have handouts that all these ideas are written down on, so you'll get one of those at the end if you want one. The number One book I recommend, if you're considering divorce, is called Divorce Besting by Michelle Weiner Davis, if I'm saying her name right. Because what I am always afraid of, I'm with John in that I think divorce many times can be a viable solution for all involved. On the other hand, I think divorce is a fantasy world. I think that we are in our pain, we are in our heartache, we're in our fear.

Natasha Helfer [00:26:55] And so divorce becomes kind of like a fantasy. Well, if I get divorced, this problem will go away. And if I get divorced, I'm not going to have to deal with this anymore. Well, that may be true if you don't have kids. And that might be if you don't have children, it might be something to seriously consider. I do treat my couples without children different than my couples with children because you're coming from a different framework. On the other hand, regardless of whether or not you have children, you are with this person for reasons that you're not always cognitively aware of. And what the research has shown is that many people who do divorce, if they don't deal with the reasons why they divorce, if they don't deal with their own stuff of why they attracted this person to begin with, they're finding themselves now in a repetitive pattern where they're attracting similar people.

Natasha Helfer [00:27:43] But now they have stepchildren involved and things just become a lot more compromising and the fantasy quickly fades because now your life is more complicated. So I do always encourage couples that, whether or not you think you need to divorce, do some marital work first.

Natasha Helfer [00:28:01] And even if it's just with the idea that I want to leave this marriage a decent human being without becoming an angry, bitter, backstabbing type of person, which many times in divorces that go ugly, it's amazing what people who have shared their bodies with each other will do to each other in a divorce situation. So I recommend that book. I think she has a lot of really great ideas and thoughts about what you can expect if you do get a divorce. What. What are going to be your challenges that way? And also if you want to try to save your marriage, what are some logistic ways of trying to do that?

Natasha Helfer [00:28:45] And a lot of what she talks about is this idea of self. And she has this fun chapter. It's called It Takes One to Tango. I can tango by myself. I don't need you to tango. And I think there's great wisdom in that because there's many times that I'll have a couple call me or a person will call me. And say, I want desperately to get help, but my husband won't come in or my wife won't come in. And I'm like, okay, well, I'll do marital therapy with you. You know, And I still call it marital therapy because that's what they're wanting. And there's amazing things that you can do yourself to change the dance within your relationship.

Natasha Helfer [00:29:21] And one thing that we all just need to understand about changing a dance is that you're going to step on toes. And what happens when you step on toes? They're squawking, you know. So as long as, you know all those things kind of going into it, you're not as shocked when these things kind of come up and people have, you know, little temper tantrums and stuff. But all that can be, you know, logistically overcome with most. In most relationships, if you are having. If you do have children, whether or not you're going to divorce, you're going to have all the issues that we talked about earlier.

Natasha Helfer [00:29:53] You're still going to have them, and you're going to have them at a much more polarized way. Because now you're going to have two homes that those kids have to visit, two sets of rules. Lots less if you think you want control and influence. Lots less of that. Because now they're with their dad or with their mom for weeks at a time without any influence from you.

Natasha Helfer [00:30:17] Again, they'll eat you alive. If you and your wife or you and your husband don't have some type of united front, you still need the united front. So none of that escapes with a divorce. None of it. So that's just part of the fantasy that I just. I hope I can just prick a bubble in that right away. Because if that's your reason for divorcing, is that I'm going to save the children and I'm going to not allow them to have any contact with their other parent or lessen the influence of the other parent. You're actually kind of doing the reverse. They'll actually seek out that parent, probably more so.

Natasha Helfer [00:30:53] Just a thought for those of you that might be that. That might be a consideration. Any questions about that or this book? Any other thoughts? Okay. The other book that I highly recommend is by John Gottman. It's called the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.

Research-Based Keys to Making the Marriage Work

Natasha Helfer [00:31:15] And he is probably one of the most fascinating mental health people I know or have studied because he's really hooking people up to electrodes and all kinds of stuff. He has a special. It's called the Love Lab. It's in Washington, Seattle. And he will hook you up to all these things so they can measure your blood pressure and your heart rate and all those kind of physiological responses. And then he just lets you loose in this apartment and you just live there for a few days with your spouse and he studies you and I guess there's probably mirrors and he takes all these measurements. And so he's come up with a pretty bold claim, which is he can predict 91% of the time whether or not you're going to divorce.

Natasha Helfer [00:32:00] And a lot of that has to do with the ways that you're communicating. And so I'll just kind of review a few of those. The harsh startup. This is when you say to somebody, I can't believe you didn't do that again, or I can't believe you're reading that stupid book about Joseph Smith again. I can't believe, you know, that's a harsh. Like you're automatically putting somebody on the defense. Automatically. No matter if it's about the dishes or church or whatever, you're automatically putting somebody on the defense. And when you put people on the defense, you're, you're already in fight mode. Okay? So whatever you just wanted to get out of that statement that you made, you're probably not going to get.

Natasha Helfer [00:32:44] So you just kind of self deprecated yourself. There's four. He calls them the four horsemen. They come in and they ruin your marriage. Criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling criticism. I think we all know what that is. That doesn't mean that you can't have a complaint. Or you can say, I don't like it that you're now drinking wine. I'm really kind of not liking that. But when you say, I can't believe you're drinking wine and you've just turned into a big alcoholic, now that's kind of more a criticism. So now you're demonizing that person instead of just saying your complaint, which is, I'm not happy with this and I'm concerned and I, you know, I have a legitimate concern here.

Natasha Helfer [00:33:30] You can have legitimate concerns and you can talk about them without being critical. Contempt is when you kind of put each other down. So like, oh, I can't, you know, the whole, like John was talking about, you're not enlightened, you don't want to do this journey with me. You're so stupid. Or you're not willing to do this. Yeah, it's contempt. It's kind of looking down, I'm better than you somehow.

Natasha Helfer [00:33:50] Defensiveness is of course, then when we defend ourselves because we're so angry about these things that are being said to us, and stonewalling is when you just kind of tune out. Like, I'm so tired of the constant criticism and contempt that I'm just going to not talk to you at all. So those. All of those things, and we all do them at different levels, but they're the enemies to your marriage.

Natasha Helfer [00:34:12] Your body language is very much a part of it. If you turn towards one another, if you're willing to look at each other, if you're willing to kind of stroke or just have some body contact when you talk, that can say a lot about a couple. When I have couples that come in and one sits on this end of the couch and one sits on this end of the couch, and they're both like this and looking at me like they don't even want to, whereas other couples kind of lounge down and one will have an arm on top of another. There's a whole different level of process going on already.

Natasha Helfer [00:34:43] Like, I already know a lot about that couple before they've even said what their problems are. Failed repair attempts. So in other words, a lot of times you bring up a complaint and the other person tries to repair it somehow. So they'll make a joke, or they'll try to make it light, or they'll try and. But golly, no, I'm not going to take that joke. You're not taking me seriously. So that was an attempt. Attempt at repairing whatever happened. But the other person said, no, I'm not having it. I'm not going to take your joke. I'm going to still stay mad about this. So not allowing for the repairing to happen, and then bad memories.

Natasha Helfer [00:35:22] So again, focusing on the negative, like, well, he's done this to me all the time, when really maybe it's been 10 times, or she always does this. So when you focus on all the negative, you forget the positive about your relationship.

Natasha Helfer [00:35:39] The seven principles that he talks about are enhancing your love maps, which your love map is all the different things that you know about that person. So do you know how that person's day went? Do you know what their favorite color is? Or what would they order at this restaurant? Or if you were going to bring them a birthday presentation, to even know what they want or need at this time. So just kind of, what are the different things about this person that are important to them at this time of their life?

Natasha Helfer [00:36:07] Nurturing your fondness and admiration. Turning towards each other instead of away. So in the body Language, letting your partner influence you. And this is interesting in this light that it doesn't have to be so polarized that maybe you can listen to some of the concerns of a non believer, and maybe as a non believer, you can listen to some of the beliefs that the believer still has and still find value in that let your partner influence you at some level, solving problems, and he talks more about that. And then overcoming gridlock. And gridlock is when you're kind of doing this like you're stuck right here. So how do you get back to kind of at least this, if not this? Right. So those are kind of some of

Guest 2 [00:36:51] their

Natasha Helfer [00:36:53] issues of both of these books that I recommend, and a lot of this I've written down for you. Any questions so far? Does any of this. Do any of you want to admit to doing any of these things? Because I know I haven't. So I don't know what they're talking about. Yes.

Guest 2 [00:37:20] What I'm wondering is, you know, I'm

Natasha Helfer [00:37:22] sure that I'm not the only one in the room who recognizes myself in some of the things you've been talking about. How do you really step back?

Guest 2 [00:37:30] They're habits.

Natasha Helfer [00:37:31] I mean, 21 years of habits. We have a very busy life. We have children. They have invaded our emotional space here. How do you even start to step back from all of that and create new habits of relating to each other in ways that are more positive right now? And that's a great question. Of course, that's what I spend hours of counseling. You live in Kansas. It's probably not going to happen. The what now?

Guest 2 [00:38:00] We're not coming to Kansas, right?

Natasha Helfer [00:38:02] No, no, I know. And there's great therapists all over the world, and I do Skype sessions just by the way. But not to promote my field, but I do believe in my field. And I do think this is. Sometimes if you get to a gridlock position or even before you get to a gridlock position, it's good to get an objective person involved because you don't want to get to a point where it's so awful that you have a hard time recovering or that the trust is so broken that maybe divorce now is the only option. So, I mean, there is a place for counseling, but I do have some do's and don'ts that I'll go over that I think are important.

Natasha Helfer [00:38:36] Let me see if I can find those. Okay. Relational processes that I think one wants to avoid in your specific situation. Provocative language. So lose the cult, lose the brainwashing. Lose the, you know, Celestial kingdom material. Lose the provocative language. We can talk to each other without eliciting those defenses because really, that's the. Those words carry a lot of baggage to them. They mean a lot. And when you throw them out there, it's very difficult for that other person to engage you in a conversation. You lose credibility in a way.

John Dehlin [00:39:21] And the other words might be apostate or faithless or not. A worthy priesthood holder on the other side. Sorry.

Natasha Helfer [00:39:32] Yeah, no, I only gave my celestial marriage one on one hand, so, yeah, thank you. The other thing to avoid is the what ifs, because we don't really. The what ifs are unknowns. And again, they can turn into fantasies that you'll never see. So in other words, well, if my husband had never left the church, our son surely would have gone on a mission, or if my wife would have joined this journey with me, our daughter wouldn't be having sexual promiscuity now because in young women's. They warped her brain.

Natasha Helfer [00:40:04] So these are things that happen regardless of whether or not parents are in the church, out of the church. Kids join the church when they're 18, on their own again, these are the what ifs that you can spend a lot of time thinking about and wishing about and bring you no, really peace or accord. And it just kind of continues that. That pattern of anger. Okay, disrespect. We've talked about that. So believing the other is stupid or enlightened because of their views, and this goes on both ends, you know, I can't believe they think like this.

Natasha Helfer [00:40:38] So in other words, somehow I'm better. That's really what it's about. Somehow I'm better than this other person. And does that really fit into your core values, you know, on either side of the equation? I don't think it does.

Natasha Helfer [00:40:54] Trying to change the other's mind, this is like, for those. I mean, we've all grown up in the faith or at least have had some relationship with the faith. I mean, this is classic missionary stuff, right? Can you force anybody to have a testimony?

Natasha Helfer [00:41:09] Supposedly not. Right? That's what we say anyway. Well, you can't force anybody not to have a testimony either. So it goes. It goes both ways. You can't really force your own opinions onto somebody else. You can talk about things, you can discuss things, you can come to agreements or disagreements or compromises, but your beliefs are your beliefs, and they're your own ongoing negative debate. So in other words, kind of like John said, if 90% of your dialogue together has to do with whether or Not Joseph Smith was a prophet or, you know, it's getting boring and tedious, and it's not helping you build up your other intimacies, and it's just not worth it.

Natasha Helfer [00:41:53] So. And I think the reason why we bring it up 90% of the time is because we're trying to convince the other person to think like us. So share it. I mean, you can talk about it every now and then, but I would like it to be more like a 2080 type of thing. You know, we talk about it 20% of the time, especially after the main crisis is over. You know, I mean, maybe at first we're talking about it a lot because it's not new information, but once you've already kind of been there, done that, we don't have to go there all the time.

Natasha Helfer [00:42:21] We just agree to disagree. Okay? Using sex as a manipulation tool. This is a big one because sex is part. Although it's its own intimacy, it's very highly correlated, especially for women, with emotional intimacy. So if I'm hating you because you now just drank a wine bottle or whatever, probably my feeling for having sex with you has highly decreased, and vice versa. I mean, it can affect men, too. This notion that men don't need emotional connection for sex is actually misguided. So understand the physical intimacy. It's its own intimacy, and give it its own space.

Natasha Helfer [00:43:03] And I know that's hard sometimes when we're angry or upset or feeling belittled or in all these other areas. But let's try to separate that out as much as we can and never use it as a tool like, well, I'm not sleeping with you because of this, or I'm not sleeping with you because you're not going to church with me. Or there's just nothing good that comes from that.

Natasha Helfer [00:43:23] Making quick, rash, or emotionally charged decisions. We talked about this. Going slowly. Nothing needs to change overnight. Recruiting allies with friends or family. Big no. No. So in other words, and it's a natural instinct when you're suffering to go to some, you know, to go to somebody sympathetic, like a family member or like a friend.

Natasha Helfer [00:43:46] And sometimes there is some space for that. But in a general rule, I discourage it because usually, especially if you're going to stay together, then now these people have difficult feelings for your spouse. And you may work through those issues with your spouse, but now these people really don't work through those issues with your spouse. So now you've created a lot of triangles and difficult social situations. Situations.

Natasha Helfer [00:44:13] This is kind of where you have to be Comfortable sitting with your own pain sometimes in respect to the fact that you're married and in respect to the fact that it's not everybody else's business what the two of you are going through. So if you need somebody to triangulate, that's what I'm here for. You triangulate with a therapist or somebody who's outside of the situation.

Natasha Helfer [00:44:36] Plus a lot of times friends give very well meaning advice and it's many times awful advice because they see you hurting and they want to save you from that hurt. Families and friends can give awful advice sometimes. If you're the one causing the renegotiation of the original marriage contract, whatever that contract is, you know, kind of the expectations you had. Don't expect or insist on huge lifestyle changes right away. John talks about that too. This needs to be a process. You need to be patient and, you know, don't, you know, well, you're not taking my children to the cult church anymore. You know, these are just not helpful.

Natasha Helfer [00:45:15] Ultimatums, don't give ultimatums. Like if you don't do this, then this. Most people want to eat their words later, you know, but then feel. Then pride gets in the way. And we don't eat our words because we said it.

Natasha Helfer [00:45:30] And then we do things we didn't really intend to do. Ultimatums are just not very healthy, usually. Okay. Things to do is we want to rekindle our courtship and this is an excellent opportunity to do that. A lot of times as married people, we do take our marriages for granted and we get busy with kids and life and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And we kind of start waiting away from each other a little.

Natasha Helfer [00:46:00] So the dates and the weekend getaways, I recommend one or two of those a year. And I don't care if it's just at the local mogul hotel that costs $40. If you can get away and just really try to enjoy what it was about each other that attracted you to begin with and focus on those things.

Natasha Helfer [00:46:22] Be actively and continually looking for the strengths. If you want to be negative oriented, you're going to have a negative oriented approach. If you're looking for the strengths and hey, what's still good here and what can we still work on? You're going to be taking a path that's a lot happier.

Natasha Helfer [00:46:38] Work on yourself. Because we need to be able to meet our own needs Sometimes putting all of our needs on the shoulder of a spouse is never fair. And many of us, I think, have that idea when we get married. I usually tell My couples, I want you guys to be two standing poles walking kind of in the similar direction so that when one of you varies a little, the other one is still okay. A lot of people have the idea that marriage is like this. You're supposed to completely lean on each other so that when one of you varies, the other one comes crashing down, too.

Natasha Helfer [00:47:13] So there has to be some kind of level of, you know what? Even if you're having your crisis, that doesn't mean I have to fall too. You know, we can have our own crises at different times of life and still kind of walk forward. Yes.

Navigating Extended Family and Coming Out to Relatives

Guest 2 [00:47:31] With that, like, visualization that just brought to mind and I don't know. We also listened to Lori and Dan on that podcast. And I guess my question is kind of for Dan, because my situation is similar to his, where my parents are converts, and my activity in the church kind of fluctuated. So my husband, his dad's in the Stake presidency, His whole family is related to Pioneers, and they're really strong. And I feel. I think I had that idea, that pole thing, leaning on each other, because I never really had a super strong testimony. I've been really passive about the church. So when he fell, I kind of felt like I started crying and freaking out, too.

Guest 2 [00:48:11] Not because I was upset, but because I was like, crap, I have to be the strong one in the church now. I don't want to be the strong one in the church now. He's supposed to be the strong one in the church.

Natasha Helfer [00:48:20] You felt your role shifting all of

Guest 2 [00:48:22] a sudden, and that was scaring me because I don't know what to do. My dad was never a member, and it just really freaked me out. So I guess. And anyone else who has. Who may have similar situation like ours, like how I feel kind of pressured not to make him active again, but I kind of feel like, well, maybe I should not be a member of the church anymore, and maybe I should follow in his footsteps. So, I don't know.

Laurie Gallagher [00:48:53] I know what you feel like. It turned out to be, in the long run, a blessing for me, I think, because I coasted through a lot of my life not really taking responsibility for what my beliefs were. You know, I went out on a mission. I married in the temple. You know, I did all this stuff because I kind of saw the church as this good thing, you know, the. And in the podcast, you probably knew it, but my dad converted. My parents became a lot closer.

Laurie Gallagher [00:49:21] So for me, it was this. You know, the church was this good influence in my family. And so when I When I left for Mission, I didn't really have much of a traditional testimony. I just thought, it's a good place. Let me give this a try.

Laurie Gallagher [00:49:35] And even though I had what I thought was maybe the roots of a traditional testimony, I just wasn't really that strong in it. And I coasted and I married this woman who was from a much more traditional family and upbringing, kind of thinking she would check my worst impulses and keep me, keep me with it. So when that happened, I'm like, okay, I can't do this. This is crazy.

Laurie Gallagher [00:49:59] But in the long run, it made me take responsibility. What do I really believe and what do I want to have as part of that? So that's been good, because I don't have. I can't make the excuses anymore. I can't say, well, I'm doing this for her. I'll give you one example.

Laurie Gallagher [00:50:20] I say this carefully because. Especially because I've been billed as the believer, this is one way I stray a lot. I'm not a big fan of the temple for many reasons. I won't go into them all, but I've never felt that kind of connection and never felt that that doesn't square with what ultimately my vision of God is.

Laurie Gallagher [00:50:42] And so in most of my Mormon life, I think most of what I've done, I've been successful at doing not because of guilt. I've done most of the things because I think they're good things. You know, I think there's good reasons to do home teaching. I'm not a very traditional one, but, you know, going out and looking after, you know, my fellow ward members and seeing that they're okay, I can get behind service.

Laurie Gallagher [00:51:04] So many of the Mormon practices that I do, I do because I see the good in them. The temple was the one thing that when I did it sporadically, as I did, it was simply because, oh, gosh, it's been a few years, I haven't gone. I better go.

Laurie Gallagher [00:51:18] And so Laurie never pressured me this way at all. In fact, if I had a firm belief in attending the temple and wanted to do so every month, I have no doubt she'd be fine with that. But I sent, you know, a few years ago, I just came to the conclusion that it's not.

Laurie Gallagher [00:51:35] That's not something that I need to stress about. Being a part maker and part of my life, I can. I'm okay. Leaving that aside, maybe that makes me not a great Mormon. I don't know. That's. I'm not going to really obsess about those kind of definitions. I'm just going to do what makes what works for me and not do what doesn't. And so it's helped me to kind of restructure my own faith. It's non orthodox for sure, but it's mine, I own it.

Laurie Gallagher [00:52:00] And it's a good feeling. But it takes a while to get there. So it doesn't happen overnight. But what I tell you is don't be afraid to look at the different components and, you know, customize what's going to work for you versus what's not going to. And you might find as you do that you might have less pressure points as a couple because maybe there's just not as many things that you're going to have differences of opinion on.

Natasha Helfer [00:52:28] Yeah, I think that's great. And I think that speaks to opportunity, growth, you know, that. Yeah, that we do rely sometimes too much to the point that it's almost a crutch to us personally for our own personal development. And sometimes it takes those fallings and those stumbles to understand, hey, how do I hold myself up? And if I can hold myself up and if I can have a direction and then I can look over and say, oh, hey, dude, I think I kind of want to walk this path with you instead of like, oh my gosh, if you're not right there, the way I think I can't even walk.

Natasha Helfer [00:53:04] Do you see the difference? And I think that it can bring a lot more intensity to the relationship when we look over and say, hey, this is a path I want to walk with you because of you, not because of all my own crap that I've been relying on you to deal with for me. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [00:53:26] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about this episode through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, family newsletter, or through your Ward bulletin and ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two. Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixton.com that's sky with an e s k y e pixton.com thank you.

Part 4 of 4 · Ep. 185

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hi, this is John Dehlin. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. What you are about to hear is part of an all day workshop recorded at the Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium on August 4, 2010. The first half of the day was dedicated to navigating an LDS faith crisis in or out of the LDS Church and the second half of the day was dedicated to navigating an LDS marriage when one of you loses their faith. Since I'm in graduate school, I put this workshop on in part to help raise money for my family's health insurance. So my initial intent was to only share this workshop with those of you who contributed financially to the podcast.

John Dehlin [00:00:37] However, many of you, my financial supporters, have encouraged me to go ahead and release the full workshop anyway so that all can benefit. So that's what I've decided to do. But I'm doing it with a plea. If you have not contributed to Mormon Stories and you find value in this workshop, please take a moment to contribute to Mormon stories today@mormonstories.org either with a one time donation or signing up for a monthly subscription. Without this support, I cannot continue to create this content for others and for you.

John Dehlin [00:01:08] So thanks so much to all of you who are monthly subscribers and please keep in touch through email@mormonstoriesmail.com and now on to the workshop. I hope you enjoy.

Laurie Gallagher [00:01:17] Yeah, I have a question about this collusion scale that you drew. Just because I see this happening in my relationship, you said you didn't go, Dan, you didn't go to the temple. That was never really your thing, right? Okay. My husband never really used to go that much either until I started on my journey. And now, dang it. He goes every single month, a couple of times. And I'm just wondering from the orthodox, I know a few of you in here or said you were, what are the motivations for that? Is it a compensating thing? Is it because the believing spouse feels like now all the burden of religiosity and spirituality rests on him or her and now they have to drag themselves and the family toward the celestial kingdom and you know what I mean? It's kind of a mystery to me. I'd love it if somebody could explain. Explain it.

Natasha Helfer [00:02:18] Well, I think that that's a great. And it's a combination of all those things. And this is what Michelle Weiner Davis is talking about when she says it takes one to tango. You have one person that makes a shift and now all of a sudden other people are shifting in ways you didn't. Maybe always expect or think that would happen. And some of that has to do with kind of what the lady in the back is talking about, that your changing is now making him have to reassess. Is this important to me or not? So some of that is a power struggle and some of it can truly be just personal commitment and figuring out, okay, well, she's figuring out what's real for her.

Natasha Helfer [00:02:55] I guess I need to do that too. And maybe this is more real for me than I realized before because nobody really forced me to ever look at that. Some of it can be compensation. And that feeling of, well, now the burden is on me.

Natasha Helfer [00:03:08] It's not just a one faceted answer, but I think it's part of that. And I think it is very interesting how when we change just slightly a pattern, all different kinds of possibilities start happening. That's kind of human nature.

Laurie Gallagher [00:03:23] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [00:03:24] Do you have a question? Yes.

Guest [00:03:25] Comment. That's exactly our situation. And yeah, all those are factors, but not some are not as important as you would think they are to me. Okay. In other words, what you think is the important factor. I consider it, but that's not why in our situation, yeah, I wasn't responsible about meeting my own integrity of what I thought was important about going to the temple. I love to go to the temple.

Guest [00:04:01] Gayle doesn't just really upsets her. So while she was still deep in the struggle, I would take advantage of my own laziness and not go. But now we're at the point where I feel like that she's respecting and giving me space to live what I believe.

Guest [00:04:30] And one of the things that is an action that coincides with what I believe is that I like to go to the temple. And so I go twice a month. But it's because that's what I want to do. There's no burden to it for me, the burden, there's none of that.

Natasha Helfer [00:04:50] I consider it is.

Guest [00:04:53] Is it a question of a burden? Because when it was a burden, I wasn't going. I chose not to go because I didn't want it to be a burden. But now we're at a space where I can do it as a celebration, as a joy, which is what I believe it ought to be. And because I can do that and she understands that, then she's more accepting of me doing it for that reason

Laurie Gallagher [00:05:17] and I don't have to go.

Guest [00:05:22] Yeah, she's not burdened with that. She's supposed to be going and she's not. And what excuses am I making for her?

Natasha Helfer [00:05:29] And I think what you're talking about, and I think what you've. The feeling I get from how you guys are managing your marriage and very similarly to how they're managing their marriage, is this idea of allowing space, allowing for space that where people, where the two people involved can worship or seek or think or talk about things without it rocking the world of the other person. And that takes a while to get to. It's not an immediate thing. And so when you talk about what can you expect? That's one way. What's one thing that you could expect? Depending on how you guys manage through this, you guys could get to a space where you are close in all your intimacies and you have the space to worship as you both will, and you have the space to teach your children about different things.

Natasha Helfer [00:06:17] That's one way of doing this. It's probably the way that I think is healthiest, you know, and the one that I would espouse. But there's lots of other things that could go wrong. And some people divorce and some people. So there's all. I can't guarantee that you can expect so and so things. Yes.

Guest [00:06:39] This issue of space to worship, the question I have, do you work with people where a spouse goes through a crisis of faith and then instead of becoming an agnostic or an atheist, they gravitate to another church? And so they're trying to negotiate the situation where one spouse is trying to maintain the Mormon thing and they want to go to some other church?

Natasha Helfer [00:07:03] I have never actually seen that happen, although I have seen people who decide, hey, we're going to go to the Mormon Church three times a month, and then one time a month we're going to do some other type of church worship. So kind of an idea that we want to teach our children what other people are doing. I've also had a lot of people who marry originally in different faiths. There's a couple in my ward right now that they pay 5% tithing to the Mormon Church and they pay 5% tithing to THE Catholic Church. And the children do all the rituals. They've been confirmed, all the different Catholic rituals. They do all the Mormon rituals. They just present both. Here's both of our religions, and someday you can choose which one you want to do. And that's how they do it. People do get creative. Yes,

Laurie Gallagher [00:07:56] We are right at that point that you're talking about, actually where he goes to the Mormon Church and he takes the kids. And I've been going every Sunday at least to sacrament meeting and I've had times when everyone was gone. And so I would sneak a Visit to the UUs or sneak a visit to the spiritual, I don't know, center for Spiritual Living, science of the mind things. And it was just a week or two ago while I was sedated, I think under some other thing I was going on, that we had a discussion and I believe he said that if it was really hard for me to continue going to the Mormon Church every Sunday, supposedly being a united front with the family because that's the only hour you're all together.

Laurie Gallagher [00:08:43] But you know, parking your butt on a bench while somebody else talks for an hour really isn't really family togetherness, in my opinion. So I'm thinking, oh, and I would like to go to this other center for Spiritual, whatever it is, I don't know the science of the mind and at least experience what was there. Because the feeling was what I believe.

Laurie Gallagher [00:09:02] I believe that God is in me and I believe in the kind of worship that I experienced there. And so he said, well, if that's what you want or something like that, then go do it. So we're right there. I haven't done it like weekly yet, but it's certainly an option and certainly inviting. Although Boise is so far away. That's another thing that's not inviting is that the kind of worshiping I want to do is not close to my house. So I have to go like an hour to get to someplace where I feel really like what I want, where I can experience the spiritual stuff feeding that I want.

Natasha Helfer [00:09:43] One thing I'll say that I really liked about John's thing is this value up thing. I know that when I get the spouses that are really resentful is when they feel that their spouse has chosen no longer to be a member of the church because it's too hard. So in other words, well, they're just lazy. Like they don't want to get up in the morning and go to church. They don't want to put in the effort.

Natasha Helfer [00:10:03] And you get sometimes the believing spouses who do feel like this isn't really a theology thing, this is more just you want out of all these responsibilities. And so I like the idea of if you're going to stay home from church and not go to church, are you just playing video games and watching TV and having fun, then that's not going to feel as genuinely sincere probably to your believing spouse as is this really a spiritual quest and something that you're really grappling with?

Guest 2 [00:10:32] Yes, I got Two questions, but I'll ask them both because I got the microphone.

Natasha Helfer [00:10:37] Okay.

Guest 2 [00:10:39] One is, earlier you mentioned that to not try to convert the other. And I'm just wondering, is that really, I mean, actively trying? Okay, you can avoid that, but I can't imagine that it's impossible to not want them to convert to your way. And so eventually, I don't know, maybe along the way you'll still do little things. So I'm just wondering on your perspective whether or not that's really actually possible. And the second question is just what's your suggestion on how to deal with family in laws? My mother in law is a dogmatic Mormon from the pits of Mormondom. I don't know how else to say it. From the pits of Mormondom. I don't know how else to describe it. And she told my wife to divorce me because she's gonna go to hell. And that had quite an emotional impact on her.

Natasha Helfer [00:11:44] That's a sample of bad advice, by the way.

Guest 2 [00:11:46] Yeah. So anyway, I'm just kind of wondering your thoughts on that

Natasha Helfer [00:11:52] as far as the. Do we want our spouse to think the way we do? Of course we do. Of course we do. And not just on religious issues, on all kinds of issues. We're a split political home in my family. So, you know, my husband probably tries to convert me many times to his way of thinking, and we have a lot of spirited debates and, you know, we enjoy that. So that's part, you know, that's not as deeply rooted as our religious belief beliefs, I guess.

Natasha Helfer [00:12:20] So do we want our spouse to think like us? Absolutely. And part of that goes back to those basic ideas of fear and ambiguity. We don't like fear and ambiguity. And if you think differently than me, what are we going to do?

Natasha Helfer [00:12:32] And I think just recognizing that that's going to be a want on both ends and then being willing to tolerate the ambiguity that goes along with that. And that's the maturity that John Dehlin is talking about, you know, that the maturity of being able to reach a different level of differentiation. That's a word I like to use a lot. Does everybody know what differentiation is?

Natasha Helfer [00:12:55] Am I spelling it right? Probably not. Differentiation. We have this idea when we turn 18, right. We become individuals. So that's individuation. So in other words, I'm just my own little island. Well, that's not really the case. We all know we're not own little islands. We're intricately connected to other people.

Natasha Helfer [00:13:12] But on the other hand of that is kind of enmeshment so you're so close to your family that you can't. If you step away one little bit, then everything kind of falls apart. So that they have found that people who are enmeshed, enrigid, are where all the problems come out of, especially things like pornography addiction and all kinds of things. So when you have enmeshed rigid families, which tend to be conservative, religious families, not just Mormons, you get a lot of problems because you never are able to really understand how to kind of go out on your own. It's not allowed. It's not allowed. You're not flexible enough to show different ways of doing something.

Natasha Helfer [00:13:59] So differentiation is the idea of I can still be connected to you, I can still love you, I can still find value in you, but I do not need to believe as you do. And so this is kind of the healthy middle ground between being a complete island individual and being completely enmeshed. And, you know, I can't do anything different than my prescribed culture or family. Does that make sense? So that's kind of what we're striving for. And this is what allows you to want to convert the other, but to know that you're probably not going to and still be okay with that and still stay married.

Natasha Helfer [00:14:35] Now, as far as dealing with family, and we were talking a little bit with you guys back there, I think dealing with family, extended family, similar to dealing with people in the church. And you guys provided some good examples. And I think, and this is why it's important not to talk to family before you're ready to be a united front as a couple, because then you get things involved and it's hard because that's kind of people's first instinct is to go to somebody for help.

Natasha Helfer [00:15:02] So you deal. The best way to deal with family is to provide a united front like you do with your children. So you just say, this is where we're at. I love him, I love her. This is what we're going to do. And, you know, kind of just, you guys need to deal with that. It's part of differentiation. Your parents have to deal with ambiguity, and your parents have to deal with their fears and their issues, and your siblings do and all that stuff. And you can't take on that responsibility for them. You can't do their work for them, just like you can't do it for your kids.

Natasha Helfer [00:15:36] You have a much better chance at doing that if you're united. Like, I'm not going to allow you to talk badly about my husband or my wife because they're still a value to me and we're still married, or even if we're not married, they're still the parent of my child and that's not allowed. You know, you set those boundaries and you can do that even in a church setting, like with the situation of, you know, the bishop says this or that and you hear from it, from your child. Well, you set an appointment with that bishop and you go in as a couple, you do everything as a couple and you go in there and you say, you know, Bishop, we love you, we support you, we think you're great, we heard this.

Natasha Helfer [00:16:13] What's your version of the story? If he says, yeah, I did say that, or that's kind of an awkward position, you say, this is not acceptable with us. We can't have our children coming to this church if one of us is going to be minimized or diminished. We cannot have that. That's a threat to our family and we will not allow it.

Natasha Helfer [00:16:33] And the bishop says, okay, ah, you're probably right. And you know, because he's coming from his own culture and his own biases and he's not perfect. And you walk away and you teach your children a lesson and it's again, an opportunity for growth for everybody involved.

Natasha Helfer [00:16:54] Yes, this is something we talked a little bit to John about. But is it constructive in your opinion to come out to your extended family or is that almost doing them a disservice? Is it better to let them think what they want and like stay in

Laurie Gallagher [00:17:10] their little bubble or is it self

Natasha Helfer [00:17:13] serving, come out to them just to, you know, unburden yourself or is it constructive? Well, and I think it depends on what it's for. Like what I'm talking about when you're going to your mother because, oh, you can't believe what my husband just told me then that may not be very constructive because now she hates your husband or, you know, whatever. But if you want to go and share, and you know, our Mormon rituals are family oriented, you know, so if you're going to have a baptism, for instance, where the father isn't going to be baptizing their child, or when you're going to have and you have good, close relationships with your family.

Natasha Helfer [00:17:47] So I'm not saying that just because you need to be united and not involve them, as far as making allies with them, you still want to share your experiences with your family if you have good relationships with them. So I'm a big proponent for honesty as kind of a normal policy. Do you have to go into huge Details? No, but you can share. Hey, this is something that we're dealing with and we just wanted you guys to know because we love you and we want you to be aware of our situation, how we're handling it. And your grandkids need you to support us and we need you guys to show support for both of us.

Natasha Helfer [00:18:21] You know, you kind of pose it in a way that this is our situation, this is what we need from you, this is what we can expect from you, this is what you can expect from us. And then you. That's part of having a family relationship. So I think it's perfectly appropriate to involve your family. This shouldn't be a secret. Your children should know about this. Are they going to keep things secret? Anything you tell your child, just don't expect it to be secret.

Natasha Helfer [00:18:46] So, yeah, at some point you have to be able to maneuver that. But again, that's hopefully something that's not done right away and it's done after you kind of have created this united front together.

Dan Gallagher [00:18:57] Yes, I wanted to add to that. And it's going to sound like I'm saying no, but not. There's a virtue also to letting people figure things out on their own. Because sometimes these kind of conversations, you have to think about what are you trying to get from them? Because if you're, if they're devout believers and you're trying to explain, you know, where your position's gone, they can only come so far, really. You know, they might be able to sympathize to some extent, but, you know, there's only so. Only so far. They can come to meet you that way. And so inevitably, a lot of those conversations can end up disappointing for both sides.

Dan Gallagher [00:19:36] I think it depends a lot on the situation you're in. If you're like next door neighbors with your parents and you're attending the same ward and you're deciding, okay, you're not going to go as much, that's probably a good reason to discuss it openly.

Dan Gallagher [00:19:48] The approach we've kind of taken. My parents, we both grew up in California. My parents moved to Utah. And originally in this early on this thing, I thought, okay, do I need to kind of sit them down and spell them out what's going on? I realized, you know, I don't know what I would gain from that.

Dan Gallagher [00:20:05] What we've done is just simply kind of try to live our lives authentically so we don't create a facade, you know, to try to make them think that we're different than we are, but we don't feel we haven't felt a need to sit them down and say, okay, well, we believe this, this or this, Laurie believes this or doesn't believe this, and so forth, to just rather let them.

Dan Gallagher [00:20:26] I see that as a kinder way in my situation to say, to let them kind of come to their own conclusions and make their observations and then, you know, be open to questions. You know, if they ever wanted to come and say, hey, you know, I'll answer anything honestly. But there may not, depending on your situation. What I'm trying to say is you may not need to feel like you need to spell out everything.

Dan Gallagher [00:20:50] It may be a better approach to just live an authentic life based on how you want to live and let them slowly come to it in weeks, months, years, whatever it might take.

Laurie Gallagher [00:21:04] My dad is still a believer, and so he's probably the only one left in my immediate family, divorce and everything. But I have been wanting to grow closer to him and I keep trying to explain so they never come right out and ask me. It's kind of a passive aggressive thing. And I mean, and my personality is much more like, let me be perfectly clear with you. And he's much more like, let him figure it out. So we did the podcast and I sent my dad a link to it. Haven't heard anything. So I kind of have to, you know, like, my desire is to be closer to him and for him to understand, but I kind of have to respect that he may not be ready to listen to three hours of my disbelief.

Natasha Helfer [00:21:47] I think a really good point that you made was what are you trying to get out of telling them? And if it's just basically like, we just want to have communication and we're close and you're a type of family that is all the time together and talking, it's going to be sometimes hard to hide that. But at the same time, you don't have to spill the beans on every single doctrinal issue that you do or do not have an issue with. And you also, I think, need to come to an agreement as a couple of what you will share. So in other words, you don't want to be sharing things about your spouse that your spouse wouldn't be comfortable with you sharing. Does that make sense? And that's true of any topic.

Long-Term Believers Reflect on Decades of Difference

Laurie Gallagher [00:22:24] Okay, so, yes, even before we were married, 36 years ago, my husband had this vision of us walking hand in hand, dressed all in white on marble, to the celestial kingdom. And I feel guilty and I feel bad for him that I've blown this out of the water for him. We haven't really talked about it, but I know he still thinks that he still has that hope and belief. Do you have any comment on that, or does anybody have any. How do I handle this? Because I do feel terrible about blowing that up for him.

Natasha Helfer [00:23:09] Sure. Well, and I hate to be trivial. My first thought was, you mean you disappointed your husband. Oh, well, you know.

Laurie Gallagher [00:23:17] Got it.

Guest 2 [00:23:18] Nick.

Natasha Helfer [00:23:18] I hate to be. I'm like, welcome to marriage. I don't mean to trivialize that, because I do understand the depth of that. And I think that, you know, whatever level you connect with your husband on a spiritual level, there may still be some truth to that. You know, I mean, there's all kinds of ways to think about the afterlife. Some people think, you know, maybe it's not the celestial kingdom, but maybe we'll still be together as a family. Maybe our spirits will still be, you know, connected somehow. I mean, there's all different kinds. You may not have any of that, so that's okay, too. But I'm just saying, you know, there are different ways to kind of wrap a thing.

Natasha Helfer [00:23:55] And the desire there of his is to be close to you and that he sees himself walking with you. And I'm not so sure that you have a different desire than that, necessarily. So there's still some commonality to that vision. He dresses it in white and on marble, and you may dress it more in a mortal type of experience in this life, but I think the commonality of that is that you're walking together hand in hand.

Natasha Helfer [00:24:24] And if you've been together for 36 years, you've done a lot of walking together. And I think there's a lot of sacredness there for both of you. But I understand that it can feel like when you hurt somebody, you hurt.

Guest [00:24:41] You know, I've dealt with mixed religion counseling situations in the past, and I've noticed that you know, kind of bouncing off what your question was earlier about the desire to convert the other party, whichever direction. I was wondering if, also because I've noticed a sense of desperation hinged on how rigid the individual's belief system is to begin with. Is more born out of. And tell me if I'm mistaken on this, but born out of compassion. In other words, I want to see the best for you. I've received this. I'd love for you to continue on this path because this is what the benefits would be for you rather than going, oh, I feel better if we have the same mindset, but rather that sense of compassion that might be.

Natasha Helfer [00:25:30] I Think what you're talking about is the difference between probably the ego and the id, right? It's like, yeah, we do have altruistic reasons why we want our spouses to think like that, but I think that that's not enough. We do need to understand that there's a core fundamental part of each of us that our brains spout off things in nanoseconds and that none of us are immune to that. And that part of what's going on there is conditioned by your past behavior and your genes and all kinds of things.

Natasha Helfer [00:26:02] And part of that is that we're very egocentric. I mean, you think of a two year old, the whole world revolves around that two year old. He doesn't think anything else is important in life. And we slowly progress away from that, but it's a slow process. We're still all egocentric. At some level, I think it is helpful to understand that yes, there are altruistic reasons we do usually want the best for each other, but that we need to understand that there's something more instinctively primal that we all also have, that if we're not aware of that stuff can get away from us and we get stuck because our altruistic ideas, we don't have to give them up because they're altruistic.

Natasha Helfer [00:26:43] But if we understand that, hey, I may be doing something that's more primal than that and that I need to really look at my own self, then that gives you a chance to change some of your behaviors. Does that make sense? Because if we get stuck on altruistic, then why do we have to change? Because I'm being super. She had a.

Guest 3 [00:27:04] What time is it?

Natasha Helfer [00:27:05] We have five minutes. I actually, I.

Laurie Gallagher [00:27:12] So what do you do if you're that triangulated person? What do you do if you're the relative or the friend and somebody comes to you and tells you all sorts of things you're really not comfortable knowing and says things, for instance, like, well, I, most of the time I want out, but it'd just be too expensive to divorce. And then there are other times I think, well, I don't actually dislike my spouse. I can probably take 50 more years of this, you know, which I, you

Natasha Helfer [00:27:43] know, it got to the point where

Laurie Gallagher [00:27:45] I actually ended the friendship because I just, I was so uncomfortable.

Guest [00:27:50] But,

Laurie Gallagher [00:27:54] and my repeat.

Natasha Helfer [00:27:55] I even looked up therapists online and

Laurie Gallagher [00:27:58] gave them a list of go see these people. You know, what do you do?

Natasha Helfer [00:28:04] Well, and I think, yeah, that's a good question. And I think it's again about boundary setting. And you know, we all struggle with boundaries and what kinds of boundaries we want to set and we don't want to offend and we want to be available, we want to be a help. But yet, you know, this is feeling uncomfortable. You know, all those kinds of things, things that again, are individual for each person. Well, and also it's hopeless. I mean, if somebody says things like that, somebody says, I don't actually dislike

Laurie Gallagher [00:28:27] my spouse, lucky for you and boyfriend, your kid's growing up with a great idea of what marriage is.

Natasha Helfer [00:28:35] Right?

Laurie Gallagher [00:28:35] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [00:28:35] And I think all you can do as a friend, if that's your role, is to validate, listen and refer and never make a decision for a friend. Well, I think you should leave or I think you should stay together.

Natasha Helfer [00:28:49] That's a lot of responsibility you're taking for that other person's stuff. So that's, I guess my advice on that. I think my last thought that I'll close with is I believe that the thing that you're going to compromise on is all the day to day stuff.

Natasha Helfer [00:29:07] You're not going to compromise on your values and your beliefs. And I think if you can both understand that, then you'll be in a much better place to be able to start formulating what your united front is going to look like. And each one of your united fronts are going to look different than somebody else's. And that's okay because it's your path and it's your journey and it's your children and it's your, I don't know, relationship with whatever you consider to be the divine. So I leave that with you.

Closing Reflections and Farewell

Guest 3 [00:29:40] Well, I think our time has come to say goodbye. Those of you who've been here all day, man, you're gluttons for punishment. I hope you've gotten a little bit of what you were hoping to get. Natasha's passing out a set of handouts. They're really good. So if any of you are interested, please check them out. I want to thank Dan and Laurie Gallagher for coming and participating. Dan and Laurie, you guys were outstanding.

Guest 3 [00:30:12] And Natasha flew all the way here on her own dime and I think she is amazing. Natasha's blog is mormontherapist.blogspot.com it's fantastic. She also blogs on mormonmatters.org which is a cool blog you guys ought to consider checking out.

Guest 3 [00:30:32] Any of you like yoga and are in Northern California? Laurie's got an excellent yoga studio and Richard. Thanks to Richard for his video and audio support. I guess I'll just close and say that it's been a pleasure to meet you all and to collaborate.

Guest 3 [00:30:52] We're going to try and find a way to make this conversation available. If any of you guys want to follow up and have other questions or insights or ideas on how we can make this better, let's say we were to do this another time. Please tell me your feedback, positive or negative.

Guest 3 [00:31:06] We'll continue doing cool podcasts on mormonstories.org and I hope that we'll take seriously this challenge of seeing if in our situations, it makes sense to take this crisis that we've been talking about and using it as the impetus to grow our marriages in very constructive ways. And I believe that's possible in it may not always be possible, but I think it's a challenge worth considering and that some of us will benefit from.

Guest 3 [00:31:37] And I'm just delighted to have been able to be in this journey with you. So thank you very much. So thanks for coming. Thanks for your participation and enjoy the rest of the conference.

John Dehlin [00:31:56] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about this episode through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, family newsletter, or through your Ward Bulletin and Ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two. Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixon.com that's sky with an E S K Y E pixton.com thank you.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.